mm

SHELLEY'S EARLY LIFE.

From a lithograph by Haverty, £.@>. 18 £9. M''
Lawless was the " literary friend " to whom
Shelley alludes in his letter to &.G. Jtfedwin, Esq.,
(Dublin, Jtfaroh 20th, 1812, See p. £97.

SHELLEY'S
EARLY LIFE

FROM ORIGINAL SOURCES.

WITH CURIOUS INCIDENTS, LETTERS, AND WRITINGS,
NOW FIRST PUBLISHED OR COLLECTED.

/\

'<>. -, Lower SackvilU Street, Dublin, from the bakon^f wbltk \
Shelley and his -wife threw the first Irish painphlfa I |

Bv DENIS FLORENCE MAC-CARTHY, M.R.I.A.

Al'THOR OF " DfeAMAS AND AUTOS FROM THE SPANISH OF CALDEROf," ETC.

LONDON: JOHN CAMDEN HOTTEN, PICCADILLY.

PI?

$4-32

PREFACE.

HPHE present work, within the limits prescribed to
itself, is founded almost entirely on original re-
search among sources of information not previously
known or examined. How it grew up the following
narrative will explain.

Keats, in the well-known passage of the noble
sonnet which records his astonishment " on first look-
ing into Chapman's Homer/'1 compares his wonder to
that of an astronomer who in searching the depths of
space has suddenly discovered a new star : —

" Then felt I like some watcher of the skies,
When a new planet swims into his ken."

Something of the same delight and the same surprise
was awakened in my mind, when in making re-
searches into a particular period of Shelley's life which
had not received the attention that I conceived it
merited, I came upon the extraordinary fact that
he had published a volume of verse just on the eve of
his expulsion from Oxford, which was unknown to his
companion in that misfortune, which his friends, his
family, and his biographers have been ignorant of, and
which now, at the expiration of sixty years, is first
identified with his name.

This poem, for the volume contained but one, it
may be as well to state here is not to be confounded

ri PREFACE*

with the Posthumous Fragments of Margaret Nicholson,
or the Original Poetry by Victor and Cazire, of which
more or less satisfactory accounts have already been
published. In the order of publication the 'poem
referred to came third, but of the two preceding works
I shall have something additional to say in the follow-
ing pages.

. The discovery I speak of is that of the fact of
publication., for of the poem itself, notwithstanding
all the exertions I have made, extending over a con-
siderable period, and in every possible direction, I
have not yet been successful in finding a copy.* To
continue or rather to vary the illustration from Keats,
I may say that I have discovered the surrounding
light that indicates the presence of the star, but have
not yet detected its nucleus ; or rather, that I have
demonstrated its existence without having seen it,
and at a time too when I did not know even its name.
A distinguished mathematician has referred in
eloquent language, and with justifiable pride, to what
he calls "the great effort of scientific genius which
our time has witnessed — the discovery of Neptune."
"Need I remind you," continues the same learned
person, " that it was no astronomical observer — no
practical skill — which gave to us that great discovery ?

* It is needless to say that this interesting volume is not to be
found in any of our public libraries. To the courteous librarians
of the Bodleian at Oxford, and of University College at Cam-
bridge, I have specially to return my thanks for the search they
had kindly made for it. A printed circular sent by myself to
almost every second-hand bookseller in the three kingdoms was
equally unsuccessful. To advertisements in the public journals,
and special inquiries instituted by Mr. Quaritch, Piccadilly ; Mr.
Stibbs, Museum Street; Messrs. Longmans, Paternoster Kow, and
others, no reply has ever been received.

PREFACE. vii

We owe it not to the telescope of the astronomer, but
to the pen of the mathematician. And surely it would
be hard to find in the history of the human intellect
anything more irresistibly attractive to the imagina-
tion— more poetic (if I may use the word) — than the
thought that on the scribbled page, in these grotesque
symbols, lay a power which enabled the mathema-
tician to look up from his table in the solitude of his
own study — to point to the heavens with the unerring
finge'r of science, and to say — I cannot see it, but it
is there.1"*

Though the discovery of a poem even by such a
poet as Shelley is a matter of trifling importance com-
pared to that of a planet, yet there is a slight resem-
blance perhaps in the mode, as will be described in
the following pages, by which the lesser fact was
ascertained.

This curious story 'must doubtless be one of the
most interesting portions of the present volume, but
the other subjects discussed will be found to contain
much new and valuable information connected both
with the life and works of Shelley. The repnblica-
tion of the Irish pamphlets is alone a matter of con-
siderable importance. They had become so scarce
that no biographer of Shelley but one has stated
that he had even seen them.f It seems paradoxical
to say so, but it is quite true, that Ho portion of the

— —

* Address delivered before the Royal Irish Academy at the
Stated Meeting, on Wednesday, Nov. ^oth, 1870. By John H.
Jellett, B.D., President, p. 14. Dublin. 1870.

t The two English pamphlets published by Shelley in 1817,
under the name of The Hermit of Marlow, which are nearly as
difficult to be met with as those he printed in Dublin, are also
given as a supplement to the present volume.

early life of Shelley is so little known and so much
misrepresented as that which includes his first visit to
Dublin in 1812. The cynical Mr. Hogg, in his in-
complete Life of the poet, surpasses himself when
referring to this event and the subsequent visit of
1813. Of the former he knew nothing at the time,
as Shelley was then totally estranged from his college
friend by a well-founded mistrust in the sublime
^virtue of that stoical gentleman, which rendered it
advisable that the unsuspicious philanthropist and the
innocent Harriet should terminate, for a while at
least, all communication with the immaculate Mr.
Hogg. Nearly thirty years ago the writer of these
lines was the first to allude with any precision to
the interesting episode of Shelley's visit to Dublin
>in 1812."* Three years later, a more elaborate paper
was published by the same writer on the general
character of Shelley's poeticalgenius.t The portions
of this essay referring to the literary and political
labours of Shelley during his visit to Dublin in 1812,
have been incorporated by Mr. Middleton in his
Shelley and his Writings, and are to be found ver-
batim in vol. i. of that work from p. 211 to p. 229.
This account as originally given in the articles just

•lilt ij?- :• __ :

* In letters, under the signature of " An Admirer of Shelley," to
the editor of The Dublin Evening Post, Nov. 24th and Dec. 6th,
. ^1842. Seven years earlier, in The Dublin Weekly Satirist of
October loth, 1835, a Juv?nile poem "To the Memory of Percy
Bysshe Shelley," was published by the same writer. The motto
shows the extent of his Shelley enthusiasm at that period. It is
from Prometheus Unbound.

" My soul is an enchanted boat,
Which like a sleeping swan doth float

Upon the silver waves of thy sweet singing.* ,;4

The Nation, Dec. 2oth and Dec. 27th,

PREFACE. ix

mentioned, notwithstanding its meagreness of detail,
is the only one hitherto published that can be relied
on for accuracy and truth. Since then, however,
the whole matter has been re-investigated by me
with almost unhoped-for success. The earliest public
allusions to Shelley that ever appeared have been
found in occasional numbers of rare old Irish news-
papers, and are now published for the first time
in connexion with his biography. A copy of The
Dublin Weekly Messenger of the yth of March, 1812,
the paper sent by Shelley to Godwin on the day
following, has been recovered. It is in this paper, thus
authenticated by himself, that I found the allusion to
a poem published by Shelley which has so strangely
escaped the knowledge of all his biographers The other
local and contemporary allusions to Shelley are very
valuable. These will be found in the letters of ' ' An
Englishman" and "A Dissenter " in Faulkner's Dublin
Journal, a paper first established by Swift's publisher,
but long since extinct. This was the organ of the Irish
Government and the Protestant Ascendency party, and
the only hostility experienced by the young philan-
thropist when in Dublin came from it. The letter of
"An Englishman " is particularly interesting. It
describes Shelley's appearance and manner at the
celebrated meeting in Fishamble Street Theatre, at
which he spoke. The writer calls him " a stripling/'
denounces him as a " degenerate Englishman," studi-
ously avoids mentioning his name, but bears the most
unequivocal testimony to the eloquence of the young
speaker, and to the enthusiastic reception which he
met with from the assembly. This letter is decisive
as to the probabilities of Shelley's success as an
orator had he devoted himself to a political career.

b

;rx • PREFACE.

The late Chief Baron Woulfe, after the lapse of many-
years, endeavoured to recall the manner of the youth-
ful poet on this occasion when making his maiden
speech, but the contemporary description here for the
first time produced, written not in admiration but in
anger, proves that the recollection of the learned judge
on this subject was erroneous. The conduct of the
audience towards Shelley at this memorable meeting,
which has been so recklessly misrepresented by Mr.
Hogg, and so carelessly adopted without inquiry by
his followers, is here for the first time described with
truth.

More valuable, however, than these public allusions,
are some private memoranda still existing in the hand-
writing of Shelley himself on this and other important
events in his life during these eventful years. These,
with some remarks in the autograph of Harriet, then
his happy and kind-hearted young bride, I have been
permitted to see and transcribe. From these truthful
and precious memorials I have extracted many pas-
sages which will put the whole motives and preparation
of Shelley for his Irish Avatar in a clear and intelli-
gible point of view. Some biographical particulars
relative to the two remarkable men with whom Shelley
became acquainted in 18 u, 1812, and 1813 are given.
Independently they would merit and repay a separate
inquiry, but their connexion with Shelley, one by the
poem of 1811, which was published for his benefit, and
the other by the History of Ireland, projected and
partly printed in 1812, will be at the present day, at
least in England, their chief source of interest.*

* I wish to modify a statement at p. 4 of the present volume,
in which the first of the gentlemen above alluded to, is said to

PREFACE. xi

Of these two historical characters and of Shelley 's
political projects at the time, some curious particulars
will be found in the present volume, partly derived
from the State Papers in the Record Office. Those
that relate to the seizure of the Irish pamphlets at
Holyhead and the attempt to circulate the Declaration
of Riyhts at Barnstaple are in themselves important
and interesting documents. For the very curious
letter of the Earl of Chichester, and the correspondence
between Mr. — afterwards Sir — Francis Freeling and
the Post Office agents at Holyhead, I have to return
my very grateful thanks to the Right Hon. Chichester
Fortescue, M.P., President of the Board of Trade,
who has obligingly placed them at my disposal. A
separate correspondence, referring to the same seizure,
between the officers of the Board of Customs at Holy-
head and the Home Secretary , the Right Hon. R. Ryder,
is also preserved among the State Papers. It has
hitherto escaped notice, and is here published for the
first time. The simple but affecting letter of the kind
and gentle Harriet, a copy of which is preserved among
the State Papers, will be read with much interest, to

To my friend Dr. R. R. Madden, M.R.I.A., I have

have " succeeded Leigh Hunt as editor of The S'atesman," after
that paper was given up for The Examiner, by Hunt and his
brother. He was prohably only a contributor. Who the editor
of The Statesman may have been in 1808—9 is uncertain. In the
latter year the proprietor was Daniel Lovell. An autograph letter
of his, which I have recently seen, shows that in March, 1809, he
had been long enough connected with the journal to authorize in
some way his making a claim on a distinguished nobleman, a
member of the Ministry, for the sum of 1300^., " agreeable to the
account delivered/' as he says, " for balance due to the Statesman
Paper." This claim throws some light on a passage in the letter of
Leigh Hunt, which will be found at p. 74 of the present volume.

to1 return my best thanks for the ' copy of The Dublin
Weekly Messenger of March 7th/ 1812, which first drew
t&y attention to the singular fact in Shelley's literary
life/ of which so much is said in 1;he following pagefc.
I have since procured a second and a more perfect copy
of the same number. It would be difficult to find a
third. All the old newspapers once preserved in thte
Irish Stamp Office, previous to the abolition of stamp
duty, were removed some years ago to London, as T
am informed by the Solicitor of the Irish Stamp Office;
by direction of the Government. What has become
of them I am unable to discover. Nothing is known
about them, as I have learned on inquiry, at the
British Museum. ,

To another of my kind friends in Dublin, John
David O'Hanlon, Esq., Barrister- at-Law, Under Trea-
surer to the Honourable Society of King's Inns, I am
indebted for Shelley's second pamphlet, Proposals for
an Association, &c., and I take this opportunity of ten-
dering him my best thanks. The first pamphlet, An
Address to the Irish People, has been in my own
possession for forty years.

These introductory remarks have exceeded tne
ordinary limits of a preface, so that I am unable in
this place to return my thanks individually to
other friends who have kindly borne with my trouble-
some inquiries during this investigation, or who, like
Philip H. Howard, Esq., of Corby Castle, and W.'^V
FitzPatrick, Esq., of Kilmacud Manor, have presented
me with original documents of considerable value.
Collectively, however, I wish to do so, trusting that
I have not omitted, as opportunity arose, to draw at-
tention to each particular act of courtesy with which
I have been favoured.

PREFACE. xiii

In conclusion I may say with perfect truth that no
published or unpublished source of information to
which I could gain access has been neglected in my
preparation for this volume, which though containing
only a portion of the matter collected and dealing
with a brief period of the poet's history, I think I
may venture to offer to the public as an honest con-
tribution to those authentic materials out of which
sooner or later a thoroughly trustworthy Life may be
written of Percy Bysshe Shelley.

oldcnn ms I fli9n> lo
POSTSCRIPT.

.

At the moment that this, the concluding sheet of
the present volume, is going to press, an elaborate
article on Shelley has appeared in the current number
of Blackwood's Magazine. It is a careful resume of
the supposed facts of Shelley's life, as given in former
biographies, and will probably be the last, in which
much reliance will be placed upon them. On the
most momentous circumstances of the poet's personal
history, I am glad to find that the opinions expressed
in the following pages are confirmed by the just and
well-founded conclusions contained in this able paper.
It must be said, however, that on less important mat-
ters the writer, in following the usual authorities, falls
into the usual mistakes. Two of these may be noticed.
A point is made of Shelley's supposed brief stay in
Dublin. But Shelley left Dublin at the time he had
from the first arranged to leave it, and the duration of
his visit is erroneously abridged by about three weeks.
The allusion to O'Connell is also unfounded. He had
no recollection of Shelley, and appears never to have

XIV

PREFACE.

seen him. He probably left the meeting at Fishamble
Street Theatre after the delivery of his own speech,
and before the young poet had addressed the assembly.
I had twice the opportunity of speaking to O'Connell
on the subject of Shelley, once in the autumn of
1844, at Darrynane Abbey, after "the unjust cap-
tivity/' as he calls it in an autograph paper presented
to myself. This visit to Darrynane I paid with two
distinguished friends — one the present Prime Minister
of Victoria, and the other a leading member of the
Irish bar, a gentleman equally loved and admired for
his many virtues and his various gifts. On a later
occasion O'Connell himself introduced the name of
Shelley. It was in the study of his town house in
Merrion Square, Dublin. He alluded to an article ou
Shelley which had just appeared in The Nation of
Dec. aoth, 1845. It attracted his notice, probably
from some allusions to himself. He paid it the unde-
served compliment of attributing it to the powerful
pen of Mr. John Mitchell, and was surprised to find
it was written by me. On both the occasions I refer
to he only spoke of Shelley, to use his own words, as
" the man who wrote Queen Mab" The writer in
Blackwood says, "Perhaps that astute demagogue was
not sorry to have the name of the son of an English
Member of Parliament in the list of his supporters at
that early period/' At the meeting in question there
were several Protestant gentlemen, one a noble lord,
of higher social position than Shelley ; but whatever
his rank, I believe that O'Connell would have repudi-
ated his political support until he had withdrawn the
atrocious calumnies on the religion of the people of
Ireland, which Shelley had so innocently put forward
in both of his Irish pamphlets.

PREFACE. iv

Another matter, of interest perhaps to some of my
readers, may here be mentioned.

The exact locality of Mrs. Fenning's school, where
Shelley first saw Harriet Westbrook, having been dis-
puted, I have made some inquiries in this neighbour-
hood, and find the conclusions I had already arrived
at, given at p. 114 of the present volume, quite cor-
rect. The school stood on the north side of Clapham
Common, near the " Old Town/'' directly facing
Trinity Church, a position from which it probably
derived its name, the mansion having been called
" Church House." The site is now occupied by a range
of about six houses, known as " Nelson Terrace." Old
inhabitants of Clapham recollect " Church House"
very distinctly. It was approached by an elaborate
antique gateway and neat grass lawn. For some of
these particulars I am indebted to the kindness of a
lady, the granddaughter of Mrs. Fenning, residing in
Kent, to whom I beg to return my best thanks,
bflfl o* toahq-mg ejrw hua J[jifoJil/L nilol iIA '),.) naq
f'jfo'f 1 - oil* rftocf ii O .e>ra y/f mtrj iw zwr Ji

2, CAVENDISH TERRACE, CLAPHAM COMMON,

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= ;n 3ifJ ovjsrf joa
is?' aid lo tell oifi ni JnomuK'us^' Jo TJ fmoM

fp ni giihaaiH aifj JA *VLori
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w ^iid j^9ll9jI2 njjilj^ jaof ;

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orl^ /iv^'ibifiiw b£il oil liiim iioqqr/g ] f;oijs

U lo floi.gHoi otf) n- /njjs

vljiiD-oOii in (jd i)s ^ il'jfii1// !):i('frvtl

•

ill 'io diocl ni

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CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.

Introductory remarks— Glance at Shelleyrs first visit to Dublin— Sensa-
tion produced by him — Earliest public notice of Shelley — Allusion to
a poem published by him hitherto unknown — Silence of Leigh Hunt
and Mr. Hogg as to this Poem — Not referred to for sixty years —
Singular statement as to its success — Mr. Finnerty — Shelley's inten-
tion to reprint his Irish pamphlets in London — Letter to Mr. Hook-
ham — BiographicalValue of the Irish pamphlets— Godwin's dread of
political Associations — The poet wiser than the philosopher — Retro-
spective view of Shelley's earliest writings — Zastrozzi— Contradictory
statements as to it — John Joseph Stockdale— Original Poetry by
Victor and Cazire— Stockdale' s budget — Description of Shelley in
it — The Stockdales — Victor and Cazire advertised in The Times—
Cause of its suppression — Conjectural explanation of the name Victor
— Shelley at Oxford — Mr. Hogg's first acquaintance with Shelley —
Grave suspicions as to his Life of the poet — Hogg and Medwin com-
pared— Mistakes of both on Lord Grenville's election as Chancellor
of the University — Letter alleged to have been published by Shelley
on the candidateship of Lord Grenville— Shelley not then a student
of University College — Endeavour to explain the statement — A letter
answering Medwin's description given pp. I — 25

CHAPTER II.

Shelley interested in Oxford affairs before his entrance at the University
— His Latin lines In Horologium only a translation — Original where
found — Mr. Hogg's description of Shelley's rooms at Oxford too ela-
borate— Altogether a fancy picture — Reasons for doubting the sudden
intimacy between him and Shelley — Posthumous Fragments of Mar-
garet Nicholson — When published — Mr. Hogg's account of the matter
— Reprint of the volume — Continuation of Mr. Hogg's narrative —

xviii CONTENTS.

His statements examined — The Oxford University and City Herald
John Muuday — Particulars connected with him— Margaret Nichol-
son published three weeks after Mr. Hogg first met Shelley — Ad-
vertisement of it— Analysis of the poems— Omission in Mr. Rossetti's
edition of the Posthumous Fragments pp. 26 — 40

CHAPTER III.

St. Irvyne published by Stockdale — Its commercial failure — Debt in-
curred by its publication — A Refutation of Deism — Contradictory
accounts of this book by Mr. Hogg — Probably the work offered to
Stockdale to pay off the debt on St. Irvyne — Shelley's letter to God-
win describing his literary employments at Oxford — Absurd state-
ments of Medwin and Hogg as to newspapers — Shelley a diligent
reader of newspapers all his life — His project of having one of his
own — " Classical reading and poetical writing" Shelley's occupation
at Oxford— Attempt to explain this statement— The Oxford Univer-
sity and City Herald — Its politics and character-- Poems published
in it during Shelley's residence at Oxford — Ode to the Death of Sum-
mer— Its Shelleyan tone — Translations from the Greek Anthologia
signed " S." in The Oxford Herald — Epigram from Vincent Bourne
— Epigrams from the Greek Anthologia resumed — Do not appear in
the paper after Shelley's expulsion ....... pp. 41 — 62

CHAPTER IV.

The Shelley Letters, edited by Mr. Robert Browning— Letter of Shelley
to the Editor of The Statesman— Letter of Shelley to the Editor
of The Examiner — The letter when first published — Place assigned
to it in Mr. Hogg's book — His absurd comments upon it —
Letter printed — Passages in it identical with those in the letter
to the Editor of The Statesman — Singular oversight in Mr. Browning
not to perceive this identity — Some of the letters forged — Detection
of the imposture — Suppression of the volume — Reasons for believing
the letter to The Statesman genuine — Leigh Hunt's account of the
letter addressed to himself confused and full of errors — Who was the
editor of The Statesman ? — No copy of the paper in the British Mu-
seum— Founded by John and Leigh Hunt. Its prosecution by the
Government— Five years' incarceration of Mr. Lovell — Mr. Lovell
not the person addressed as editor of The Statesman by Shelley —
Mr. Peter Finnerty— Elaborate account of him from an article in The
Examiner by Leigh Bunt— The Walcheren expedition— Sir Home
Popham and Mr. Finnerty— Sir Richard Strachan— Epigrams 63—94

CONTENTS. xix

CHAPTER V.

Sir Francis Burdett and Peter Finnerly— Subscription to sustain Mr.
Finnerty in prison commenced— Universal sympathy with him— -
Local committee formed at Oxford— Article on Mr. Finnerty in The
Oxford Herald — Subscription opened there — Subscription of " Mr.
P. B. Shelley" to the fund— Shelley's letters to The Statesman and
The Examiner evidently suggested by articles in the The Oxford
Herald— Shelley's missing poem of 1811, advertised conspicuously
in The Oxford Herald, March 9th, 1811— Strong probability that
the poem was a satire— Quotation from The Curse of Kehama— Mr.
Hogg's absurd statement relative to that poem— Mr. Hogg described
in The Atlantic Monthly — The Poetical Essay on the Existing State of
Things, probably referred to under another name by Shelley in a
letter to Godwin — Alleged extraordinary success of the poem — A
profit of looZ. realized by it, and presented to Mr. Finnerty— Ac-
count of Shelley's life at Oxford resumed pp. 95—106

CHAPTER VI.

The Necessity of Atheism — An advertisement of its intended publication
discovered, and now first extracted from The Oxford Herald^
The MS. offered to Mr. Stockdale— Stockdale's opinion of Mr.
Hogg— Remonstrance of Mr. Hogg, and his allusion to Peter Fin-
nerty in Stockdale' s Budget — Poems by Janetta Philipps — Shelley's
interest in that volume — Probably published at his expense — List of
subscribers — Names of Shelley, Miss Shelley, Miss Hellen Shelley,
and Miss Harriet Westbrook amongst them — Acquaintance of Shelley
with Harriet Westbrook probably formed in consequence of her sub-
scription to this volume — Expulsion of Shelley and Mr. Hogg from
Oxford — Shelley's residence with Mr. Hogg in Poland Stroet — Ad-
vertisements of the Poetical Essay in the London papers during this
period — Mr. Hogg's charge of " underhand ways" in Shelley — Cir-
cumstances to which he may have alluded — Harriet Westbrook at
Claphatn — Extracts from unpublished letters by her— Terms of en-
dearment used by Shelley towards Harriet — Dedication of Queen
Mob— Promised revelations as to the real facts of the separation —
Shelley's married life with Harriet at Edinburgh— Visit of Mr. Hogg
—Removal of the Shelleys and Mr. Hogg to York — Miss Westbrook
sent for by Harriet — "A guardian angel" — Abrupt separation of
the Shelleys from Mr. Hogg at York — A "Fragment of a Novel"
too true — " Charlotte" and "Albert" real personages — Residence of
the Shelleys at Keswick— Total cessation of all intercourse between

xjc, CONTENTS.

Shelley and Mr. Hogg for more than a year— Letter of the Duke of
Norfolk to Shelley-rUntrue statement as to its contents by Mr.
Hogg — Substance of the letter—Extracts from the Private Diary of
the Duke of Norfolk alluding to Shelley, now first published— Expla-
nations of same— Visit of Shelley, Harriet Shelley, and Miss West-
brook to the Duke of Norfolk at Greystoke— Extracts from the
Private Journal of Mrs. Howard, of Corly Castle, now first pub-
lished, describing the party— Mr. James Brougham and Mr. Calvert
. — Unpublished letter of Shelley alluding to Mr. Calvert— De Quincey
on Shelley's residence at Keswick — Shelley's intercourse with
Southey at Keswick — Southey's lines on Eobert Emmett— Shelley's
"differences" with Southey— Southey's two sets of opinions and
feelings .... . * . » ^ •• ••'<• .... pp. 107 — 129

CHAPTER VII.

Preparations for the Irish campaign — Letter to Godwin — The Address
to the Irish People described— Duration of Shelley's intended resi-
dence in Dublin prearranged — The programme not departed from —
Miss Eliza Kitchener-— Letter to her— Intention of Shelley to pub-
lish his Poems in Dublin— Shelley writes Verses on Robert Emmett —
Departure of the Shelleys from Keswick — Shelley's parting observa-
tions on Southey j from an unpublished letter written at Whitehaven.
— Mrs. Calvert — The Isle of Man visited en route for Dublin — Arrival
of the Shelleys in Dublin — Date hitherto given erroneous— Stormy
passage — Coincidence between it and Southey's in 1801 — Sackville
Street, Dublin, described — Unpublished letter of Shelley describing
his hopes — Apostrophe To Ireland— The Mexican Revolution, &c., in
this letter — Amount of his income — Letter of introduction to Curran
from Godwin. — Seeming indifference of the Government to Shelley's
proceedings — The State Papers of 1812 — Slowness of Curran in
seeking out Shelley — The Address to the Irish People advertised and
published — 'The first sheet sent to Miss Kitchener — Copies also sent
to Mr. Westbrook and Godwin — Heavy postage on the pamphlets,
which were charged as letters— Godwin the greatest sufferer —
Curran still slow in making advances to Shelley — Lord Cloncurry's
opinion of Curran's accepting office pp. 130 — 154

CHAPTER VIII.

An unpublished letter of Godwin to Curran — Lord Sidmouth and the
Mat-que of Anarchy — Curious paper in the Record Office addressed
to Lord Sidmouth, relative to Godwin's Juvenile Library, published

CONTENTS. xH

under the name of Baldwin— Minute analysis of the various works,
most of which are mentioned by Godwin in his letter to Curran —
Shelley's letter to Hamilton Rowan — Rowan's friendship for Mary
Wollstonecraft — Elizabeth Dixon, of Ballyshannon, the mother of
Mary Wollstonecraft — Unpublished letter of Shelley, describing his
mode of circulating his pamphlets — He and Harriet throw them from
the balcony of No. 7, Lower Sackville Street — Daniel Hill, the Irish
servant of Shelley — He gives out that his master is only fifteen
years of age — Postscript by Harriet — Article in The North British
Review, by the late Dr. Anster — Recollections of Chief Baron
Woulfe, as to Shelley's mode of addressing a meeting, erroneous —
Shelley's " Plan for Proselytising the Young Men of Trinity Col-
; lege"+-The balcony of No. 7, Lower Sackville Street— Roger
O'Connor — Other unpublished letters of Shelley . . pp. 155 — 177

AN ADDRESS TO THE PEOPLE or IRELAND, BY PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

pp. 179-224

twbbk 9(iT — niwboO orf lod-te J — ngHsqnMsa denl onl
CHAPTER IX.

,rp __ l>9«njjTM!9ia fuMud ni soctob

Peter Finnerty alluded to in the foregoing Address — The Limerick
Evening Post — Papers in the Record Office relative to the proceed-
ings of the Catholics — Mr. Finnerty mentioned — Statement in the
House of Commons relative to Mr. Finnerty's speech — Letter of Mr.
Wellesley Pole— The meeting in Fishamble Street Theatre — Origi-
„ nally a music hall — The Bull and Head Society and Dean Swift —
Handel's visit to Dublin — The Messiah— Decay of Fishamble Street,
and demolition of the theatre— Private reports of the meeting fur-
nished to Government preserved in the Record Office — Shelley
briefly alluded to — Mr., subsequently Sir Thomas, Wyse described _
Remarks on this description — Shelley's speech, as reported in The
Freeman s Journal — Report in The Dublin Evening Post — Report
in The Patriot— Shelley's own account of his reception at the
meeting, from an unpublished letter — Mr. Hogg's reckless misde-
scription of the scene — His statements proved to be untrue — -The
resolution to which Shelley spoke— Extract from the speech of . Mr.

PP- a«5-:*4«
lo noiniqo

CHAPTER X.

Shelley as an orator— Opinions of Medwin, Trelawny, Captain Williams,
and Chief Baron Woulfe on the subject — Important letter of "An Eng-
lishman " who was present at the meeting in Fishamble Street Theatre
on the 28th of February, 1812, as given in Faulkner's Dublin Journal

if# CONTENTS.

of March 7th, 1812— Description of Shelley — His enthusiastic recep-
tion by the meeting— The earliest, article ever published on Shelley from
The Dublin Weekly Messenger of March 7th, i8f2— A poem of Shelley
hitherto unknown referred to in this article — The poem published
for the purpose of assisting to sustain Mr. Peter Finnerty in prison-
Its great success— The paper sent by Shelley to Godwin — A second
letter alluding to Shelley, signed "A Dissenter," in The Dublin
Journal, March 21 st, 1812 pp. 248— 261

PROPOSALS FOR AN ASSOCIATIOV OF PHILANTHROPISTS, &c., BY PEROT
BYSSHE SHELLEY pp. 263—286

CHAPTER XI.

Shelley's residence in Dublin continued — Godwin and old letters —
Political Justice an ineffective work — Shelley to Miss Hitcbener —
Beresford and the army in Portugal —A Dublin "magistrate of
hell"— Major Sirr— Shelley and Sir Francis Burdett — Mr. Law-
less— Failure of the attempt to establish the association — Post-
script by Harriet — Mr. and Mrs. Lawless — Autobiographical sketch
by Harriet Shelley — The " Pythagorean system'' of food adopted —
Postscript by Shelley — Lord Fingal — Shelley's description of his
reception at the meeting in Fishamble Street Theatre — Intends to
establish a newspaper with Mr. Lawless — Letter to Mr. Medwin,
senior — History of Ireland partly printed — Shelley's " literaiy
friend " — Who he was — Godwin and the Philosopher's stone — Mr.
Harold Skimpole— Article in The Examiner on "Young Poets" —
Suicide of Harriet — Curious reference to Shelley and Mr. Lawless
in The Dublin Evening Post, Nov. i7th, 1842 — Frederick William
Conway and John Lawless— Letter of Mr. Conway to Lord Sid-
mouth in the Record Office — Shelley withdraws his pamphlets from
circulation — Letter to Godwin — Seizure of the pamphlets and De-
claration of Rights at Holyhead — Letter of the officer of Customs
— Letter of the postmaster at Holyhead — Letter of the Earl of
Chichester — Curious statements about Shelley, Harriet Shelley, and
Miss Kitchener in Lord Chichester's letter — Second letter of the
officer of Customs at Holyhead, enclosing the copy of Harriet's
letter preserved in the Record Office — Harriet's letter — Curious
allusions in it — Mrs. Nugent — St. Patrick's night, &c.

pp. 287—320

CONTENTS. xxiii

;
CHAPTER XII.

Harriet Shelley's letter sent to Mr. Wellesley Pole— No action taken by
the Irish Government — The Declaration of Eights printed at Dublin
— Passages in it and Shelley's second pamphlet identical.

PP- 3^1—324

DECLARATION OF RIGHTS .......... pp. 324 — 329

.

Shelley leaves Dublin — Misstatements of Mr. Hogg — Unpublished letter
of Shelley from Rhayader — Habeas Corpus Act not suspended —
"Verses on Robert Emmett" — Description of Nantgwillt— Letter
to Godwin — Reflections on the visit to Dublin — Shelley deficient in
humour — Disappointed with Curran — Curran's wit described by
Godwin — Curious allusions of Shelley in an unpublished letter from
Rhayader — Unchanging fidelity to Harriet proclaimed — "Percy's
little circle " — Mistakes corrected — Shelley's departure from Dublin
not "abrupt" — Absurd romance of Captain Medwin — Mr. Peacock's

resume of Shelley's visit to Ireland completely wrong, pp. 329 — 341

•

i

CHAPTER XIII.

The Shelleys leave Wales and settle at Lynton, Lymouth, North
Devonshire — Godwin pressed to visit — Description of Miss Kitchener
—A suggestion that the philosopher should bring that lady with
him— Miss Kitchener finds her way alone — Daniel Hill, the Irish
servant of Shelley — His arrest at Barnstaple — Curious papers in the
Record Office published by Mr. Rossetti — The same story told else-
where — The Literary History of Barnstaple — New facts — The Letter
to Lord Ellenborough piinted at Barnstaple — Mr. Syle — Suppression
of the Letter — Incompletely printed by Lady Shelley — Mistakes in
the transcript of the State Papers referring to the Barnstaple
affair corrected — The Devil's Walk — Lord Castlereagh and Shelley
equal admirers of Lady Morgan's Missionary — Departure of the
Shelleys from Lymouth — Godwin's visit — "The Shelleys gone!" —
" The Hon. Mr. Lawleys ;" not a brother of Lord Cloncurry — Re-
moval of the Shelleys, Miss Westbrook, and Miss Kitchener to
Tremadoc — Samuel Rogers at Tan-yr-allt — Alleged subscription of
Shelley to the Tremadoc breakwater fund — The story very doubtful —
Separation from Miss Kitchener— Confused account by Mr. Hogg —
Miss Kitchener considers herself badly treated — Shelley's visit to
London in reference to this matter — Alleged residence of Shelley with
Godwin during this visit scarcely possible — "Fanny Godwin " — Her

xxiv CONTENTS.

real name— Her melancholy fate — "The Brown Demon" — The
" attempted assassination" at Tan-yr-allt — Arrival of Daniel Hill —
His complicity in this affair very improbable — an attempt to clear up
the mystery— Conclusion pp. 341—366

SUPPLEMENT.

A PROPOSAL FOR PUTTING REFORM TO THE VOTE THROUGHOUT THB
COUNTRY, BY THE HERMIT OF MARLOW .... pp. 369 — 378

(" We pity the plumage, but forget the dying bird.")

AN ADDRESS TO THE PEOPLE ON THE DEATH OF THE PRINCESS CHAR-
LOTTE, BY THE HERMIT OF MARLOW pp. 379 — 394

APPENDIX.
No. 1. Death of Mr. Peter Finnerty pp. 395 — 400

No. 2. Correspondence between the Earl of Moira and the Right Hon.
Richard Ryder, relative to "Mr. Lawless," from the State Papers —
Letter of Mr. Philip Lawless— Death of Mr. John Lawless— His
Funeral pp. 400—408

t$*i

v. $d$

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY,

ETC

•UOJJH* SToV si n3I ottiTTat aoi jAScraoxl A

•IMH»H SET T3 ,Y*0::-
*& &ift tegTtft tod jegsnrolq sdi jjtiq o V

CHAPTKR I

WOJHiM ?0 TIMflSH SHT 7

the 1 2th of February., 1812, a young English-
man, with his wife and sister-in-law, arrived in
the capital of Ireland, and todk up his residence in
the principal street of that city. The gentleman had
completed his nineteenth year a few months before,
but still preserved the appearance of a boy. His wife,
remarkable for her fair and girlish beauty, was still
younger than her husband, and her sister, the eldest
of the party, was but little in advance of her com-
panions as to age. This not very formidable-looking
trio had come to Ireland on a business of no small
importance, for which they had been long preparing.
Their object was, " as far as in them lay" — to use the
language of the chief organizer — to effect a funda-
mental change in the constitution of the British
Empire, to restore to Ireland its native Parliament,
to carry the great measure of justice called Catholic
Emancipation, and to establish a philanthropic associa-
tion for the amelioration of human society all over the
world. The young man was perfectly unknown in
Ireland, or even in England outside the circle of his

B

i PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

own family and a few friends. He had published
anonymously two or three little books, both in prose
and verse, which perhaps may be considered the least
promising first attempts ever made public by a man of
genius. One poem, indeed, is said to have been " very
beautiful,'" but as yet we are not in a position to judge
if the laudatory epithet was well deserved. Of that
poem and its history we shall have much to say.

Undeterred by these literary failures, and with a
consciousness of possessing intellectual powers which
had not yet found their proper mode of expression,
he determined to devote himself to the work that lay
nearest to his hand in the great and universal scheme
of philanthropy which he had projected. The con-
dition of Ireland particularly attracted him. His
sense of justice revolted at the oppression which that
country had long endured, and his benevolence was
enkindled by the miseries from which it still suffered.
He determined to devote himself to its cause. He
resolved to become a true Knight of St. Patrick, and
to extirpate from its soil those serpent forms of bigotry,
prejudice, and misrule which had unfortunately re-
placed the less venomous reptiles that had fled before
the staff of the Apostle. How he prospered in that
generous undertaking is partly the object of the
following pages to relate, for the first time, truthfully
and in detail.

Bearing in one hand, as Caesar did his Commen-
taries, his unpublished Address to the Irish People,
and in the other a letter of introduction from a
celebrated though rather ineffective philosopher to
an illustrious Irish orator and wit, he crossed the
stormy Channel and boldly raised at once the standard
of Philanthropy.

EARLIEST PUBLIC NOTICE. 3

On the 1 2th of February, 1812, he arrived an un-
known stranger; by the 2yth of the same month he
had already become famous. To use his own language
in an unpublished letter, he had within that short time
" excited a sensation of wonder in Dublin/' and " ex-
pectation was on the tiptoe." The day following the
date of this letter he made his first public appearance
in a great assembly, which he roused to enthusiasm by
his fervid eloquence, and a week later appeared the
first of the innumerable papers which year after year,
and perhaps century after century, were destined to
be written upon the genius and the story of that then
unknown young man, under the now familiar head-
line of Percy Bysshe Shelley.

This article, which was the first to foreshadow the
proud anticipations of Shelley himself, that his fame
would one day become

" A star among the stars of mortal night,"

and which was the earliest to recognise the benevolence
at least of his intentions, would for these reasons
alone be worth preserving. It will therefore be given
entire in its proper place, but its concluding paragraph
may be here extracted for the exceedingly interesting
fact in his literary history which it records, and which
by this casual allusion alone has been rescued from
complete oblivion. To the accidental preservation of
an Irish newspaper published sixty years ago, we are
indebted for the following singular and most unexpected
piece of information.

" We have but one word more to add/' says The
Dublin Weekly Messenger of March 7, 1812: " Mr.
Shelley, commiserating the sufferings of our distin-
guished countryman Mr. Finerty, whose exertions in

B 2

4 PERCY EYSSHE SHELLEY.

the cause of political freedom he much admired, wrote
a very beautiful poem, the profits of the sale of which,
we understand from undoubted authority, Mr. Shelley
remitted to Mr. Finerty. We have heard they amounted
to nearly an hundred pounds. This fact speaks a
volume in favour of our new friend."

What was this " very beautiful poem ?" and who was
" Mr. Finerty ?"

Such are two of the questions I propose to myself
to answer in the course of this inquiry.

Since the 7th of March, 1812, until the publication
of the present work, except in the private researches
set on foot by the author for its recovery, it may
safely be asserted that no other allusion can be found
to the existence of the poem referred to in the
paragraph just quoted. As to Mr. Finerty, the case
is somewhat different. The State Trials by Cobbett,
the eloquence of Curran, and the history of the United
Irishmen, preserve the earlier incidents of his story ;
while the annals of English journalism, the disastrous
Walcheren expedition, and the debates in Parliament,
supply ample materials for his later career. But the
connexion of Shelley with him, and the ignorance of
Shelley's friends as to that connexion, are alike ex-
traordinary.

Mr. Finnerty, as he subsequently wrote his name,
must have been personally well known to Leigh Hunt.
He succeeded Hunt as editor of The Statesman news-
paper, when that journal was given up by the future
friend of Shelley for the more successful Examiner.
It was an article written by Leigh Hunt in the latter
paper that drew the attention of Shelley to the case
of Mr. Finnerty, and led in a very short time to the
remarkable fact of his publishing a poem for his

SHELLEY AND MR. FINNERTY. 5

benefit. Shelley, it is true, was not personally known
to Leigh Hunt until two years after the publication of
this poem; but Mr. Finnerty lived until 1822, the
year of Shelley's death, and Leigh Hunt long survived
both. It is strange that in all this time Leigh Hunt
should have been silent as to a fact which it is difficult
to conceive he could have been entirely ignorant of.
It is just possible that he heard of it at a time when he
had no conception of the astonishing dimensions to
which Shelley's fame would eventually grow. That
he preserved no accurate recollection of his own first
acquaintance with Shelley himself is certain. It will
be shown hereafter that what he has written on this
subject is full of errors. Another friend of Shelley,
and an earlier one — his biographer, Mr. Hogg — in a
letter of remonstrance to John Joseph Stockdale, the
publisher, alludes with approval to the conduct of a
gentleman who it will be proved was Mr. Finnerty.
This letter is published in Stockdale s Budget. But
neither in the Autobiography of Leigh Hunt, nor in
the so-called Life of Shelley by Mr. Hogg, is there
any mention of the journalist to whom the poet paid
this singular mark of respect, or of the poem itself. It
is scarcely necessary to say that later biographers do
not supply the omission. The time when this poem
was published, and the place where it was written,
render Mr. Hogg's ignorance of its existence most
remarkable. The redeeming feature of Mr. Hogg's
egotistical and eccentric book is generally considered
to be that portion of it which, written many years
before under the title of Shelley at Oxford, is incorpo-
rated with the later work. What authority can be
placed even on this division of Mr. Hogg's book will
be seen further on. At present it need only be said

6 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

that while he loads his page with trivial details and
apocryphal conversations, he forgets, or was never told,
that his incomparable friend,, " the Divine poet/' as
he sometimes almost derisively calls him, with whom
he represents himself as living in daily and almost
nightly intercourse, had published a poem when at
Oxford which, in a pecuniary point of view, was the
most successful he had ever written.

There is another place where the absence of any
allusion to this poem is also remarkable. Mr. Finnerty,
as will subsequently be more fully stated, had been
prosecuted by the Attorney-General for an t alleged
libel on Lord Castlereagh. Being prevented by Lord
Ellenborough from proving that the statements com-
plained of were true, he declined to enter into his
defence, and allowed judgment to go by default. He
was sentenced to a long imprisonment in Lincoln gaol.
The liberty of the Press being considered to be involved
in the persecution of Mr. Finnerty, an important
meeting was called at the Crown and Anchor Tavern,
at which Sir Francis Burdett presided. A vote of
sympathy and approval of Mr. Finnerty' s conduct was
passed, and a subscription to sustain him in prison at
once set on foot. I have taken the trouble of ex-
amining all the lists in reference to this fund which I
could find in The Morning Chronicle and other papers
of the period. In the course of the year the amount
exceeded the sum of one thousand pounds. I have,
however, been unable to meet with any acknowledg-
ment of so handsome a contribution as one hundred
pounds — the profits, as we are told, of the poem which,
as will be shown, Shelley published for the benefit of
Mr. Finnerty. I was, however, rewarded by finding
the personal subscription of " Mr. P. B. Shelley/' not

THE DUBLIN WEEKLY MESSENGER. 7

in a London paper indeed, but in a very unexpected
quarter,, as will subsequently be given in detail.

It is perhaps equally singular that no recollection
or tradition of this circumstance, and no copy of the
poem, or even of the fact of it ever having been
published, have been preserved by the collateral descen-
dants of Mr. Finnerty who are still living. Two
gentlemen have kindly responded to my inquiries, but
have not been able to give me any information. And yet
there can be no doubt that the statement in The Dublin
Weekly Messenger of March 7th, 1812, is true. At the
time this statement was publicly made, Mr. Finnerty
was still in prison. He was not released until the ex-
piration of his sentence in the following August. The
Weekly Messenger frequently alluded to his martyrdom
for what was considered to be the liberty of the Press.
He on more than one occasion wrote from his prison
to the editor of that journal. A famous speech
delivered by him before his incarceration, which was
made the excuse in Parliament for the revival of the
Convention Act, will be found fully reported in the
volume of the paper for 1810. Nothing published hi
The Weekly Messenger could possibly have escaped his
notice. It is incredible that he would not have con-
tradicted this statement of the presentation to him of
the profits of a poem if it were not true. This state-
ment, too, it should be remembered, is authenticated
by Shelley himself, for he sends the paper containing
it to Godwin, and pointedly refers to the article in
which it is given. In his first pamphlet, printed in
Dublin, Shelley expressly alludes to Mr. Finnerty by
name. The subject, in whatever point of view we
regard it, is full of difficulties, but as much light as
can possibly be now thrown upon it is endeavoured to

8 PEROT BYSSHE SHELLEY.

be supplied in the following pages. It is here alluded
to in order to direct the attention of the reader to
what will perhaps be found to be one of the most
interesting incidents recorded in this narrative.

To tell the story satisfactorily, it will be necessary
to give, in the first place, the only authentic allusion
hitherto published, which Shelley himself has made to
the extraordinary episode in his life comprised in his
first visit to Dublin in 1812, and the pamphlets which
he printed and circulated there in furtherance of the
great objects which led him to undertake so singular
an expedition. We shall then review his career as a
student both at Eton and Oxford; his early publica-
tions, including the missing poem of 1811; some
singularly interesting particulars of his married life,
particularly at York ; his residence at Keswick ; until
at length we find him at the age of nineteen years and
five months in Dublin, a political agitator and emanci-
pator, an advocate for " Home Rule," a repealer of
the Union, and a universal philanthropist.

Percy Bysshe Shelley, in a letter to a literary
friend in London, thus writes from Lymouth, Barn-
staple, on the 1 8th of August, 1812 : —

" In the first place, I send you fifty copies of the
letter [to Lord Ellenborough}, I send you a copy of
a work which I have procured from America, and
which I am exceedingly anxious should be published.
It develops, as you will perceive by the most super-
ficial reading, the actual state of republicanized Ire-
land, and appears to me above all things calculated
to remove the prejudices which have too long been
cherished of that oppressed country. I enclose the
two pamphlets which I printed and distributed whilst

TEE IRISH PAMPHLETS. 9

in Ireland some months ago (no bookseller daring to
publish them). They were on that account attended
with only partial success, and I request your opinion
as to the probable result of publishing them with the
annexed suggestions in one pamphlet, with an expla-
natory preface, in London. They would find their
way to Dublin."*

Without referring at present to the letter addressed
to Lord Ellenborough, about which I "shall have to
mention subsequently some interesting facts not pre-
viously given in any biography of the poet, we have
here the important statement by Shelley himself, that
so far from being ashamed of his Irish crusade, in
the early part of the same year, as insinuated by Mr.
Hogg, he had the deliberate intention of publishing
in London the pamphlets which he had printed and
distributed in Dublin a few months before.

For the republication of these pamphlets, even
after the lapse of sixty years, it may be said that we
have in this letter Shelley's own express sanction. It
is true that his object in republishing them at the
time would have been a political one. But in a
literary point of view, I think he must have regarded
them with some complacency. The second pamphlet,
at least, he considered to be written in his " own
natural style." In this respect, however, it differs
very slightly, if at all, from the first, and both pam-
phlets may be favourably compared with the letter to
Lord Ellenborough, which has been reprinted, though
incompletely, by the poet's family.

* Letter of Shelley to Mr. Thomas Hookham, of Old Bond
Street, " a valued friend of Shelley." — See Shelley Memorials,
pp. 38, 39.

I0 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

It is not, however, for their literary value or their
political significance that the pamphlets are now re-
published : it is for their biographical, perhaps I
should say their autobiographical, interest. The poli-
tical importance of these eloquent protests against
intolerance, injustice, and misrule has passed away;
but as historical memorials both of the writer and of
the time and place in which they were published, they
wi]l always be read with interest. Many of the evils
against which these fervid appeals were directed have
been, at least in recent years, honestly attempted to
be remedied. One of the two great measures which
Shelley so ardently supported, not only by his pen
but by his voice, was passed within seventeen years of
the time when it received the enthusiastic advocacy of
the young poet. What is more to the purpose, the
great victory of Catholic Emancipation was won by
the very means and in the very way which Shelley
himself had projected. That way and those means,
it is scarcely necessary to say, were not suggested by
Shelley to the powerful mind that organized and made
them effective. They were in existence before the
youthful philanthropist visited Ireland, and they were
practically worked out after he left. With him, how-
ever, they were original, and their success in other
hands only proves the sagacity with which he sug-
gested their use. To whomsoever the merit is due, the
fact remains that an association, the mere probability
of which Godwin looked upon with terror as inevitably
leading to bloodshed, anarchy, and defeat, carried its
point successfully, without violence and without even
a word of insulting exultation over those who opposed
it. In this way the youthful poet proved himself a wiser
teacher and a truer prophet than the mature philosopher.

ZASTROZZI. ii

Before proceeding to describe the actual facts of
Shelley's first visit to Dublin,, hitherto so briefly
alluded to or so strangely misrepresented, I have
thought it right to trace, if possible, the source of that
interest in the cause of Ireland which he retained all
his life, and which led him to begin his public career
as a reformer and a philanthropist by becoming its
avowed champion. This investigation will have a
value outside the particular subject here alluded to,
as an opportunity will be thereby afforded for the cor-
rection of several important errors connected both
with the life and works of Shelley, which, having been
once stated with an air of confidence in some bio-
graphical account of the poet, have been adopted
without examination by succeeding writers.

The first published work of Shelley was the little
prose romance called Zastrozzi. It appeared in June,
1810, and advertisements of it will be found in The
Times of the 5th and the I2th of that month. Ac-
cording to the recollections of a schoolfellow, Shelley
gave a farewell banquet to some of his companions at
Eton out of a sum of 40^. which he is said to have
received from Messrs. Wilkie and Robinson, of Pater-
noster Row, for the privilege of publishing this
puerile extravaganza. Lady Shelley, who gives this
recollection of Mr. Packe, apparently contradicts it in
subsequent pages of her Memorials. She states that
"in 1809, Shelley left Eton and returned home"
(p. 12), and "when still at home, he had written a
great many romances in prose, some of which have
been printed" (p. 20). This, however, is a mere in-
advertence on the part of Lady Shelley. It was pro-
bably St. Irvyne alone that was written in the interval
between the time of Shelley's leaving Eton and his

12 PERCY BYSSEE SHELLEY.

entrance at Oxford. The other " wild romances/'
including Zastrozzi, were probably composed when
Shelley was " at home " before he went to Eton.

Whatever may have been the arrangement between
Shelley and Messrs. Wilkie and Robinson, Zastrozzi
was published by them on the 5th of June, 1810.
Its success does not appear to have encouraged the
generous publishers to renew their somewhat dubious
liberality, as we find Shelley arranging with a different
but more celebrated publisher in reference to another
matter of very singular interest.

This was the transfer on the I7th of September,
1810, to John Joseph Stockdale, 41, Pall Mall, of the
entire impression of a volume as yet undiscovered,
entitled Original Poetry by Victor and Cazire.

It is rarely that a publisher becomes the biographer
of one of his authors ; seldom is it that the fable is
reversed, and the lion depicts the man. Mr. Stock-
dale did not become the biographer of Shelley in any
very extended sense; he only gave an episode in the
poet's life which it is evident he considered by no
means an unimportant one — as being connected with
himself. In fact, at the conclusion of the series of
papers which he devotes to Shelley in that curious
melange of vanity and vindictiveness called Stockdale's
Budget, he declares that but for this accidental though
fortunate intercourse between himself and the poet, the
family of the latter would have been deprived of "the
only ray of respect and hope which may illumine
their recollections of a father when they have attained
an age for reflection, and shed a gleam of ghastly light
athwart the palpable obscurity of his tomb."*

* StocMale's Budget, No. 9, Wednesday, February 7, 1827.

STOCK DALE'S BUDGET. 13

The principal facts connected with Shelley's brief
intercourse with Mr. John Joseph Stockdale have
been given by Mr. Richard Garnett in his well-known
paper entitled Shelley in Pall Matt* A few inte-
resting particulars, however, are omitted. One of these
is important as giving additional grounds for hoping
that a copy of Victor and Cazire may yet be found.
Another refers to Mr. Hogg. In reprinting Shelley's
letters as given in Stockdale' s Budget, Mr. Garnett says,
" We have not scrupled to occasionally correct an ob-
vious clerical error, generally the result of haste, some-
times of a misprint/' Considering that we have not
the originals of these letters, but only a transcript of
them by Stockdale, these corrections, though extending
sometimes to the substitution of a more appropriate
for a less appropriate word, may be justified. In such
extracts, however, as I shall give, I think it will be
more satisfactory to print them exactly as they are
given in the original publication.

As Stockdale's Budget is now difficult to be met
. with, and as the passage has not been extracted by
Mr. Garnett, it may be interesting to quote in his
own words the account which the publisher gives of
his first interview with Shelley. This is found in the
first number of the publication, dated Wednesday,
Dec. 1 3th, 1836. It commences thus : —

" PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

" The unfortunate subject of these very slight re-
collections introduced himself to me in the autumn
of 1810. He was extremely young. I should think
he did not look more than eighteen. With anxiety

* Macmillans Magazine, June, 1860.

14 PERCY BYSBHE SHELLEY.

in his countenance, lie requested me to extricate him
from a pecuniary difficulty in which he was involved
with a printer whose name I cannot call to mind,
but who resided at Horsham, near to which Timothy
Shelley, Esquire, afterwards I believe made a Baronet,
the father of our poet, had a seat called Field Place.
I am not quite certain how the difference between the
poet and the printer was arranged ; but after I had
looked over the account I know that it was paid,
though whether I assisted in the payment by money
or acceptance I cannot remember. The letters show
that it was accomplished just before my too conscien-
tious friendship caused our separation. Be that as it
may, on the i^th September, 1810, 1 received fourteen
hundred and eighty copies of a thin royal 8vo volume
entitled Original Poetry by Alonzo and Cazire, or
two names something like them. The author told
me that the poems were the joint production of him-
self and a friend, whose name was forgotten by me
as soon as I heard it. I advertised the work, which
was to be retailed at 35. 6d., in nearly all the papers ;
but I was told that, though paid for, it did not appear
in The Times, and from my frequent experience I
consider that such omission was far from improbable,
and I fear The Times was not singular in the omission.
In many papers, however, I saw it. I am only par-
ticular on this point because few if any were sold — a
consequence which, as I intimated, was not unlikely
to be the case ; though even from these boyish trifles,
assisted by my personal intercourse with the author, I
at once formed an opinion that he was not an every-
day character."

Passing over the mistake of Mr. Timothy Shelley,

THE STOCKDALES. 15

the poet's father, having been " made " a baronet, we
come to the curious statement that the advertisement of
Victor and Cazire, though paid for, was not inserted
in The Times. This omission, of which Stockdale
had no doubt, was, he considers, done designedly. In
this supposition the publisher must have had a con-
sciousness that at some period of his career a certain
watchfulness and caution were occasionally exercised
in the offices of respectable journals before advertise-
ments from the house of " Stockdale Junior " were
given to the public. This, however, refers to a later
stage of his business. In 1810 he had not commenced
that downward course that ended in his ruin. For
more than half a century the house of Stockdale had
been an eminent one. The elder Stockdale and his
sons had carried on a respectable and extensive busi-
ness in Piccadilly before and after John Joseph had
set up for himself in Pall Mall. Theology, history,
and fiction issued continually under their name. They
were in great request among amateur poets and
poetesses, who, if they could " write/' could also pay
" with ease." The lady song-birds nocked to them by
hundreds. I have seen a large collection of poetical
works written exclusively by women, the greater part
of which was published by the Stockdales. Among
these was Mary Stockdale's Effusions of the Heart, a
volume published in 1790 by her father, John Stock-
dale.

The house being thus established for the production
of this not very dangerous class of literature, the
statement that an advertisement of a harmless book of
juvenile poetry like Victor and Cazire was deliberately
suppressed by The Times seemed very improbable. An
examination of the file of The Times for 1810 removed

i6 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

all doubt upon the point. Mr. Garnett had found in
The Morning Chronicle of September i8th an advertise-
ment of the volume,, but twenty-four days later — that
is, on Friday, October isth — The Times contains the
following : —

"In royal 8vo, price 45. boards, OEIGINAL POETEY. By
VICTOE and CAZIEE. Sold by Stockdale Jun., 41, Pall Mall."

This is important as showing that the volume was
on sale for more than a fortnight longer than Stock-
dale remembered it to have been. In that time some
additional copies were doubtless sent out for review,
or presented by the author and publisher to their
friends, thus increasing the probabilities that this very
interesting volume may yet be found.

The cause of the suppression and destruction of the
volume was as follows : A short time after its appear-
ance, Mr. Stockdale tells us that, on examining his
new venture with more care than he had previously
bestowed upon it, he discovered that one or other of the
bards who concealed their names under the romantic
pseudonyms of Victor and Cazire had contributed
anything but " Original Poetry " to the volume thus
infelicitously entitled. " Thin" as the royal 8vo was,
Mr. Stockdale found it was thick enough to contain
at least one poem by the well-known Matthew Gregory
Lewis. The name of this poem is not given; but as
we have seen that Stockdale, in first mentioning the
volume, gives the title as " Original Poetry by Alonzo
and Cazire," instead of Victor, it is not improbable
that the appropriated poem may have been that of
" Alonzo the Brave and Fair Imogene," which appeared
in the Tales of Wonder of "Monk" Lewis in j8oi.
Shelley was indignant at the imposition which had
been practised upon him, and ordered the whole im-

VICTOR AND CAZIRE. 17

pression to be destroyed. Stockdale, however, considers
that before the sentence was carried out nearly a
hundred copies had been put into circulation.

Mr. Garnett has some ingenious conjectures as to
Shelley's probable coadjutor in this curious volume. He
considers that Cazire represents a female name, which is
very likely. But he has not noticed, neither has the
coincidence been remarked by any other writer, that the
Posthumous Fragments of Margaret Nicholson — Shelley's
next publication — are alleged to be edited by " Fitz-
Victor" — that is, as I understand it, by the son, or
literary executor, of the " Victor" of the suppressed
volume. It would be curious to find, should a copy
of " Victor and Cazire" ever be met with, that the
" Posthumous Fragments" were to some extent but a
re-issue of Shelley's original contributions to the pre-
ceding work.

I now come to a very important event in Shelley's
life — his matriculation at the University of Oxford.
One would think that the exact day on which his name
was entered on the books of University College could
easily be ascertained, but it has never been given.
Lady Shelley says that Shelley went to Oxford in
1810, "in which year he became an undergraduate of
University College." This is rather vague. Mr. Hogg
gets over the difficulty very adroitly. Describing the
first evening which he spent with the young poet, he
says, " I inquired of the vivacious stranger, as we sat
over our wine and dessert, how long he had been at
Oxford, and how he liked it ? He answered my ques-
tions with a certain impatience, and, resuming the
subject of our discussion, he remarked that," Sec. —
This is in Mr. Hogg's best style. He always found
it easier to invent or embellish a conversation than to

j 8 PERC Y B YSSHE SHELLEY.

state a fact. He tells us when he first met Shelley,
but that does not fix with any certainty the period of
the poet's entrance at the University ; otherwise, what
was the meaning of the question ? The passage of
Mr. Hogg's book is well known, but it is always a
pleasure to read it and to quote it.

" At the commencement of Michaelmas Term — that
is, at the end of October, in the year 1810 — I happened
one day to sit next to a freshman at dinner : it was his
first appearance in hall. His figure was slight, and
his aspect remarkably youthful, even at our table
where all were very young. He seemed thoughtful
and absent. He ate little, and had no acquaintance
with any one. I know not how it was we fell into
conversation,'"'* &c.

At first sight, the palpable inaccuracies of Mr.
Hogg's book seem to arise from defective memory —
though it seems strange that a gentleman who could
so minutely remember the very words of lengthy con-
versations after an interval of twenty-two years should
have fallen into the grave mistakes as to matters of
fact which will presently be pointed out. A more
careful study of the book, however, and a fuller
knowledge of Mr. Hogg's character, create a strong
presumption that a good deal of deliberate mystifica-
tion as to dates, conversations, and letters, has been
practised by that gentleman.

Captain Medwin was a careless writer, and the
mistakes in his Life of Shelley are so numerous as
totally to destroy its authority. Mr. Hogg, on the
contrary, perhaps from the fact of his having been a

* Life of Shelley, vol. i. p. 51. The passage quoted was origi-
nally published in the New Monthly Magazine, 1832.

HOGG AND MEDWIN. 19

successful conveyancer, is generally supposed to be
accurate, except in those instances where his personal
prejudices lead him astray. Thus it is that most of
his statements pass unquestioned, and are repeated
over and over again without examination by those
compilers who find in his two bulky volumes an in-
exhaustible storehouse of supposed facts. But even
on questions which apparently he could have no motive
in misrepresenting, he is just as inexact as Captain
Medwin. The following is an instance of this, although
the later biographer supplements the error of his pre-
decessor by a greater one of his own : —

" During the whole period of our residence there" —
that is, at Oxford, says Mr. Hogg, in one of those un-
guarded moments when he enables us to test his
statements by a reference to a fixed date — " the Uni-
versity was cruelly disfigured by bitter feuds arising
out of the late election of its Chancellor : in an
especial manner was our own most venerable college
deformed by them, and by angry and senseless dis-
appointment. Lord Grenville had just been chosen."
(i. p. 254).

Captain Medwin, who, it must be admitted,
generally throws the whole responsibility of all state-
ments relative to Shelley 's life at Oxford on Mr. Hogg,
adopts of course the foregoing narrative, and thus
supplements it with the following marvellous details : —

" It might be supposed that it was not without some
reluctance that the master and fellows of University
College passed against Shelley this stern decree"
[his expulsion on Lady-day, 18 u], "not only on ac-
count of his youth and distinguished talents promising
to reflect credit on the college, but because his father
had been a member of it, his ancestors its benefactors.

C 2,

20 PERCY £YSSHE SHELLEY.

I know not if these considerations had any weight with
the conclave, but it appears that Shelley was by no
means in good odour with the authorities of the
college, from the side he took in the election of
Lord Grenville, against his competitor, a member of
University. Shelley, by his family and connexions,
as well as disposition, was attached to the successful
party, in common with the whole body of under-
graduates, one and all, in behalf of the scholar and
liberal statesman. Plain and loud was the avowal of
his statements, nor were they confined to words, for
he published, I think, in The Morning Chronicle, under
the signature of " A Master of Arts of Oxford," a
letter advocating the claims of Lord Grenville, which,
perhaps, might have been detected as his by the heads
of the college. It was a well-written paper, and
calculated to produce some effect ; and as he expressed
himself eminently delighted at the issue of the contest,
1 as that wherewith his superiors were offended, he was
regarded from the beginning with a jealous eye/ Such
at least was the impression of his friend."

This story thus ben trovato was too good to be lost,
and thus we have so painstaking and generally so
accurate a writer as Mr. Rossetti adopting it without
the least misgiving.

Under the title of " Minor Writings of Shelley,"
Mr. Eossetti assigns to the year i8n — that is, two
years after Lord Grenville was elected Chancellor — the
composition of this apocryphal letter.

" He published, under the signature of ' A Master
of Arts of Oxford/ probably in The Morning Chronicle, a
letter upholding the candidateship of Lord Grenville as
Chancellor of the University." — Rossetti's Memoir of
Shelley, p. clxxiv.

ELECTION OF LORD GRENVILLE. -21

A few words will show how utterly irreconcilable
these statements are with the date of Shelley's entrance
at University College.

The Duke of Portland, who preceded Lord Gren-
ville as Chancellor of the University of Oxford, died
on Wednesday, the 3Oth of October, 1809. The elec-
tion of Lord Grenville as his successor took place two
months later — on the I3th and I4th of December in
the same year. The following is the result of the
contest as given in The Oxford University and City
Herald of Saturday, December 16, 1809 : — " The com-
mittee for the election of a Chancellor of the Uni-
versity, in the room of the late Duke of Portland, met
between nine and ten o'clock on Wednesday morning,
and continued sitting day and night, without any
adjournment, till ten o'clock on Thursday night, when
the numbers were declared as follow : —

" For Lord Grenville. . . . 406
„ Lord Eldon .... 393
„ Duke of Beaufort . . .222
Majority for Lord Grenville . 13 "

The candidateship of Lord Grenville, therefore, ex-
tended from the 3Oth of October to the I4th of
December, 1809. But in 1809, as we have seen,
Shelley was at Eton and Field Place, and did not go to
Oxford until the end of October, 1 8 i o — that is, exactly
a year after the candidateship of Lord Grenville com-
menced, and ten months after he had been elected.
Even the installation of Lord Grenville as Chancellor
preceded the entrance of Shelley into the University
by four months. That event took place on June 30,
1810. It was attended with great rejoicings, the re-
citation of many odes, amongst which was one by the

22 PEROT BTSSHE SHELLEY.

Rev. W. Lisle Bowles ; the striking of a medal in
honour of the event, and though last, not least, the
ascent of Mr. Sadler in a balloon. The poem of
Bowles appeared simultaneously in The Morning Chroni-
cle and The Oxford Herald on Saturday, July 21 st, 1810.
A poet was found also to describe, perhaps satirically,
the great event of Oxford life in the midsummer of
1 8 10. The following advertisement appears in The
Oxford Herald, Saturday, June 3<Dth, 1810, the day of
the installation, so that not only the bard, but the
printer, must have had the power of improvisation : —

"This day is published, price 35. 6d., A Poetical Account of the
Installation of a Chancellor of the University of Oxford. Ox-
ford : Printed by and for J. Munday, and sold by Longman, Hurst,
and Orme, London."

As Shelley did not enter the University of Oxford
until the end of October, 1810, it is therefore simply
impossible that he could have taken any part, as a
member of the University, in the election of Lord
Grenville. That nobleman had not tf just been chosen/'
as Mr. Hogg writes ; he had been elected ten months
before. It is equally untrue that during " the whole,"
or any part of Shelley's residence there, " the Uni-
versity was cruelly disfigured by bitter feuds arising out
of the late election of its Chancellor/' All outward
animosity or dissatisfaction had long since ceased.
Even in July, 1810, three months before Shelley
entered, The Oxford Herald declined to publish a letter
on the subject through fear of reviving any unpleasant-
ness that may have arisen out of that event. In the
number for Saturday, July sist, 1810, the following
notice was given : —

" To Correspondents. — We acknowledge the receipt of
a letter on the election of Lord Grenville, and, although

MR. TIMOTHY SHELLEY. 23

we cordially agree with the sentiments of our corre-
spondent, we are unwilling to revive any question which
may create party animosity, and therefore decline its
insertion."

These explanations conclusively dispose of Mr.
Hogg's careless and erroneous statements. The express
declaration, however, of Captain Medwin, that he had
read an effective letter which Shelley published on the
subject of Lord Grenville's candidateship, requires some
further notice. We have seen that during the whole
period that Lord Grenville's name was before the con-
stituency of Oxford, Shelley, who had left Eton, was
residing with his father at Field Place. Mr. Timothy
Shelley had been a student of University College, and
had graduated there.* It is admitted on all hands that
he took a warm interest in the affairs of that college,
and was a staunch adherent of the Liberal party both
in and out of Parliament. The contest for the
Chancellorship must have roused all his energies. He
had a vote, and possessed, doubtless, considerable in-
fluence, which we infer from his character he was not
slow to use for the benefit of the cause. It was his
exertions, and not those of his son, who had not then
entered, that may have provoked that hostility and
unfriendliness which the poet experienced later, and
at a critical moment. From the specimens of his
letters which have been published, the epistolary powers
of the future Sir Timothy were certainly not consider-
able. What more likely thing than to employ the
ready pen and the sympathetic liberalism of his talented

* He received the Degree of B.A. Jan. i6th, 1778, and of
M.A. Feb. 1 6th, 1781. — Catalogue of Oxford Students, 1841,
p. 598.

H PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

young SOD, who was then preparing for his entrance
into the great University ? How better account for
Shelley assuming the title of a Master of Arts of
Oxford when he had not even entered the University,
in which he never took a degree ? I had previously
searched The Morning Chronicle and The Oxford Herald
during " the whole period of his residence there/' as
Mr. Hogg says, for a letter on the election of Lord
Grenville, answering the description of Captain Medwin,
but in vain. As Longfellow sings, it was like looking
for the birds in last year's nest. Not so, however,
when I came to the right period, and when this
thought occurred to me, that Shelley might possibly
have written a letter on the impending election in his
father's name. In The Morning Chronicle of November
1,5th, j8o9, there is a long letter on the subject, signed
" A. M. Oxon/' substantially the signature remembered
by Captain Medwin. The commencement of the letter
seems to have been " inspired" from a different source
than that which dictated the conclusion. The former
is more personal, and reflects on the nepotism or family
partiality attributed to Lord Chancellor Eldon. It
attacks the Duke of Beaufort also, but more lightly.
The letter rises in dignity as it advances, and appeals
to larger and more general principles. This portion
may be quoted. It is not unworthy of Shelley, even
at a more advanced period of his life than he had then
attained.

" Lord Grenville/' says the writer, " between his
pigmy rivals, rises with a colossal grandeur of character,
with all the private worth that belongs to both of his
competitors, and without the infirmities that are im-
puted to one of them. He unites the accomplished

LETTER IN THE MORNING CHRONICLE. 25

scholar with the eminent statesman. As a parliamentary
orator, he is considered by a celebrated author whose
works now lie before me, since the extinction of the
great luminary, Mr. Fox, without an equal. But Lord
Grenville not only promises appropriate excellence for
the Chair of the University, but is also particularly
recommended to the admiration of the country by his
manly political career. Twice has he given up place
and power, and lately refused them, solely upon public
principle. These are facts which confer real dignity,
and constitute a great man. In these times, when
independence is so rare, and when place is generally
sought alone for the profit it produces, it is the duty
of those with whom the expression of any part of the
national voice is entrusted, to honour, with all the
distinction they can bestow, him who is almost a
solitary exception to the opprobrium cast upon public
men. A contrary course of conduct must induce
suspicion, especially if it be seen on the present occa-
sion, that if public virtue be seldom found in the
statesmen of the present day, it is because the public
itself is degraded.

" I am, Sir, your obedient servant,

"A.M. Oxon."

"Oxford, Nov. I3th, 1808 " [a misprint for 1809].

CHAPTER II.

is another and a curious reason for sup-
posing that Oxford affairs occupied a large share
of the attention of the good people at Field Place in
those stirring months of September and October,
1809. The Oxford University and City Herald, of
which I have spoken so frequently, and about which
I shall have much more to say, circulated largely in
the southern counties. We may be sure that Timothy
Shelley, Esq., M.P. for Shoreham, was one of its
subscribers, It is extremely likely from the following
circumstance that the paper was not unfrequently in
the hands of his son. Captain Medwin (vol. i. p. 48),
referring to the facility with which Shelley wrote
Latin verse, has the following passage : — " That he had
certainly arrived at great skill in the art of versifica-
tion, I think I shall be able to prove by the following
specimens I kept among my treasures, which he gave
me in 1808 or 9." The first is the epitaph in " Gray's
Elegy in a Country Churchyard/' " probably a school
task."

"The second specimen of his versification/' says
Captain Medwin, " is of a totally different (character,
and shows a considerable precocity •" —

" IN HOKOLOGIUM.
" Inter marmoreas Leonorse pendula colles

Fortunata mmis machina dicit horas.
Quas manibus premit ilia duas insensa papillas

Cur mihi sit digito tangere, amata, nefas ?"

SHELLETS LATIN VERSES. 27

These lines, which Mr. Kossetti prints in his edi-
tion (vol. ii. p. 501), more correctly than Captain
Medwin had given them in his Life of Shelley, he
assigns, with doubtful accuracy, to the year 1808. It
is evident that Captain Medwin considered the thought
to be not only precocious, but original, with Shelley.
In this opinion probably Mr. Hossetti agreed. Some-
thing of the precocity is explained, however, and all
of the originality removed, by a reference to The
Oxford Herald of Saturday, September i6th, 1809,
where the following English epigram appears : —

" On seeing a FBENCH Watch round the Neck of
a Beautiful Young Woman.

" Mark what we gain from foreign lands,
Time cannot now be said to linger, —
Allow'd to lay his two rude hands
Where others dare not lay a finger."

It is plain that Shelley's Latin lines are simply a
translation of this epigram, which he most probably
saw in The Oxford Herald, but may have read in
some other paper of the time, as I distinctly recollect
having met with it elsewhere when making my re-
searches among the journals of the period.

In giving an account of the next poetical venture
of Shelley while at Oxford, it will be necessary to
draw particular attention to the manner in which this
story is told by Mr. Hogg, and the place in his narra-
tive assigned to it. The evidence already existing
establishes a case at least of grave suspicion against
him, and proves that, for some reasons best known to
himself, he has not told certain events and circum-
stances of his hero's life in the actual order of their
succession. This mode of dealing with his materials

2g PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

is very remarkable in the way that he introduces to
our notice the Posthumous Fragments of Margaret
Nicholson. Every one interested in Shelley has read
the lively papers which Mr. Hogg contributed to the
New Monthly Magazine in 1832, under the title of
" Shelley at Oxford/' To these we have previously
alluded. They form a considerable part of the first
volume of his incomplete life of the poet, and are
certainly the most interesting portion of it. If they
cannot be taken as a perfectly faithful account of
what actually took place between the young men
during their intercourse at Oxford, they have been
generally received as a clever elaboration of what by
possibility may have occurred. The conversations
are too minutely remembered and too elaborately re-
ported to be taken for more than an attempt on the
part of the writer to fill up an outline that must
have well-nigh faded from his mind after an interval
of twenty-two years. Such descriptions as the fol-
lowing betray rather the trick and artifice of a novelist
endeavouring to produce an effective picture than the
serious aim of a historian able and willing to tell the
truth. It will be remembered that this is the account
which Mr. Hogg gives of his first visit to the rooms
of a young student whose acquaintance he had made
the day before, and with whom he had no grounds
for supposing he would ever be much connected in
after life.

" Books, boots, papers, shoes, philosophical instru-
ments, clothes, pistols, linen, crockery, ammunition,
and phials innumerable, with money, stockings, prints,
crucibles, bags and boxes, were scattered on the floor
and in every place ; as if the young chemist, in order
to analyse the mystery of creation, had endeavoured

HIS ROOMS AT UNIVERSITY COLLEGE. 29

first to reconstruct the primeval chaos. The tables,
and especially the carpet, were already stained with
large spots of various hues, which frequently pro-
claimed the agency of fire. An electrical machine,
an air-pump, the galvanic trough, a solar microscope,
and large glass jars and receivers, were conspicuous
amidst the mass of matter. Upon the table by his
side were some books lying open, several letters, a
bundle of newspapers (!), and a bottle of japan ink (!),
that served as an inkstand; a piece of deal, lately
part of the lid of a box, with many chips ; and a
handsome razor that had been used as a knife. There
were bottles of soda-water, sugar, pieces of lemon,
and the traces of an effervescent beverage (!). Two
piles of books supported the tongs, and these upheld
a small glass retort above an argand lamp. I had
not been seated many minutes before the liquor in
the vessel boiled over, adding fresh stains to the table,
and rising in fumes with a most disagreeable odour.
Shelley snatched the glass quickly, and dashing it in
pieces among the ashes under the grate, increased the
unpleasant and penetrating effluvium."*

In this story there may be one or two of the cir-
cumstances which we can rely upon as having actually
occurred ; as to the rest of the description, it is evi-
dently as complete a study as a chapter in The Old
Curiosity Shop. Mr. Hogg had forgotten that he told
us a few pages before that Shelley had but just entered
the University, that he had dined the preceding even-
ing for the first time in hall, and that, as far as Mr.
Hogg's information goes, this might have been only
the third day of Shelley's residence at Oxford, and

* The Life of Percy Bysshe Shelley, vol. i. pp. 69, 70.

30 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

yet there was time in this short interval to burn the
carpets and the tables, and create the chaos which
Mr. Hogg depicts with the hand of a master. The
" bundle of newspapers/'* the " bottle of japan ink/'
and the " traces of an effervescing mixture/' recorded
after twenty-two years, are wonderful results of the
imagination if not of the memory of the writer.

It is, however, with these graphic but perhaps
not very faithful details that more than 300 pages
of Mr. Hogg's book are taken up. The " Ima-
ginary Conversations/' as they would have been
called had they been written by Savage Land or, we
may be sure, are quite as good as the real ones, and
they may be taken at any rate as evidence of the
subjects that occupied the attention of the friends
during the period of their residence at the University.
It seems strange, however, that so little transpires in
these interminable discussions about the literary
occupations of Shelley at the time. He either did
not confide in Mr. Hogg at all, or Mr. Hogg con-
sidered a report of his own clever mode of
arguing with Shelley would be more interesting to the
reader than a detail of those poetical pieces which
Shelley not only wrote but published when at Oxford.
He makes an exception to this reticence, indeed, in his
account of the Posthumous Fragments of Margaret
Nicholson, but it will be noticed that he does not do
so until nearly the end of his paper called " Shelley at
Oxford" — after 210 pages have been filled with those
apocryphal walks and talks to which I have been
alluding. It is quite evident that Mr. Hogg wished

* " A newspaper never found its way to Ms rooms the whole
period of his residence at Oxford," says Mr. Hogg in another
mood, and totally forgetful of what he had previously written. —
Life of Shelley, vol. i. p. 257.

THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD. 31

it to be understood that the events and conversations
recorded in those 210 pages preceded the publication
of Margaret Nicholson, and that it was not until after
an acquaintance of some duration, and a close intimacy,
that Shelley showed him the proof-sheets of this
work, and announced to him his intention of publish-
ing it. So far from this being the fact, it will be
seen from the evidence here given for the first time,
that it must have been at the very beginning of their
intercourse — probably on the very first visit ever
paid by Hogg at Shelley 's rooms — that the mention of
the poems published seventeen days after was made.

The whole of this story is very curious, and must
be told somewhat in detail. Mr. Hogg represents
Shelley^s first attempt at authorship while at Oxford
as the result of that personal and private application
to study which was stimulated and aroused by
the public neglect of his college. " The University
at large was not less remiss than each college in par-
ticular. . . . The languid course of chartered laziness
was ill-suited to the ardent activity and glowing zeal
of Shelley/'— Life, i. p. 259.

" Since those persons who were hired at an enor-
mous charge by his own family and by the state to
find due and beneficial employment for him, thought
fit to neglect this their most sacred duty, he began
forthwith to set himself to work. He read diligently
— I should rather say he devoured greedily, with the
voracious appetite of a famished man — the authors
that roused his curiosity ; he discoursed and discussed
with energy ; he wrote — he began to print — and he
designed soon to publish various works " (vol. i. p. 260) .

" Shelley," says Mr. Hogg, on the same page as
that from which I have just quoted, " was quick to
conceive, and not less quick to execute." He must

32 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

certainly have been " quick to conceive " in one day's
experience of the University the extent of the tutorial
and maternal want of care that was in store for him —
quick, too, to devour all the authors that roused his
curiosity, and quick to execute those overt acts of
authorship that were the result of all this individual
industry and collegiate neglect. But Mr. Hogg must
he allowed to tell his tale out fully in his own way.

" When I called one morning at one, I found him
busily occupied with some proofs, which he continued
to correct and re-correct with anxious care. As he was
wholly absorbed in this occupation, I selected a book
from the floor, where there was always a good store,
and read in silence for at least an hour.

" My thoughts being as completely abstracted as
those of my companion, he startled me by suddenly
throwing a paper with some force on the middle of the
table, and saying in a penetrating whisper, as he sprung
eagerly from his chair, ' I am going to publish some
poems/

" In answer to my inquiries, he put the proofs into
my hands. I read them twice attentively, for the
poems were very short, and I told him there were
some good lines, some bright thoughts ; but there were
likewise many irregularities and incongruities. I
added that correctness was important in all composi-
tions, but it constituted the essence of short ones ;
and that it surely would be imprudent to bring his
little book out so hastily; and I then pointed out the
errors and defects.

" He listened in silence with much attention, and
did not dispute what I said, except that he remarked
faintly that it would not be known that he was the
author, and therefore the publication could not do him
any harm.

HIS FIRST POEM. 33

" I answered, that although it might not be disad-
vantageous to be the unknown author of an unread
work, it certainly could not be beneficial.

" He made no reply ; and we immediately went out
and strolled about the public walks.

" We dined, and returned to his rooms, where we
conversed on indifferent subjects. He did not mention
his poems, but they occupied his thoughts ; for he did
not fall asleep, as usual. Whilst we were at tea, he
said abruptly, ' I think you disparage my poems. Tell
me what you dislike in them, for I have forgotten/

" I took the proofs from the place where I had left
them, and looking over them, repeated the former ob-
jections and suggested others. He acquiesced, and after
a pause asked might they be altered ? I assented.

" ' I will alter them.'

" ' It will be better to re- write them ; a short poem
should be the first impression/

" Some time afterwards he anxiously inquired, f But
in their present form you do not think they ought to
be published V

" I had been looking, over the proofs again, and I
answered, ' Only as burlesque poetry ;' and I read a
part, changing it a little here and there.

" He laughed at the parody, and begged I would
repeat it.

" I took a pen and altered it, and he then read it
aloud several times in a ridiculous tone, and was
amused by it. His mirth consoled him for the con-
demnation of his verses, and the intention of publishing
them was abandoned.

" The proofs lay in his room for some days, and we
occasionally amused ourselves during idle moments by
making them more and more ridiculous — by striking

34 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

out the more sober passages, by inserting whimsical
conceits, and especially by giving them what we called
a dithyrambic character, which was effected by cutting
some lines in two, and joining the different parts
together that would agree in construction, but were
the most discordant in sense/' — Life of Shelley, vol. i.
pp. 261, 2, 3.

It is necessary here to interrupt Mr. Hogg for a
moment. The Posthumous Fragments of Margaret
Nicholson, though a rare volume, is not inaccessible.
A copy of the original edition is in the British Museum,
and a fac simile reprint, of which a limited number of
copies were issued some time ago, may be seen without
much difficulty. The poems, with the exception of the
first,* which extends to eighty-eight lines in couplets,
are also given in Mr. Rossetti's edition (vol. ii. p. 511).
They are thus within the reach of all, and it will be
found that in no single respect do they bear out the
description of Mr. Hogg.

There is no intentional burlesque traceable in them.
There is no example of this process of cutting lines
in two and then joining them, so as to agree in con-
struction but to differ in sense. Indeed, Mr. Hogg
seems to have had a misgiving, after all this display of
his own drollery and cleverness, that some day or the
other his statements would be examined and his de-
scription put to the test. This difficulty did not put
him to much inconvenience. Three pages later he in-

* It is to be regretted that Mr. Eossetti omitted this poem from
his edition, on the mere statement of Mr. Hogg that " the MS. had
been confided to Shelley by some rhymster of the day." It is the
only poem Shelley refers to in his " advertisement " to the volume,
and its omission renders that " advertisement " unintelligible.

MARGARET NICHOLSON. 35

troduces this saving clause, which is highly creditable
to his professional skill : — " The work, however, was
altered a little, I believe, before the final impression ;
but / never read it afterwards " (vol. i. p. 267) — a state-
ment that may well be believed after his utterly
erroneous description of its character and contents.

It was to Mr. Hogg, however, as it appears, that we
owe its name.

" I hit upon a title at last, and we inscribed it on
the cover.

" A mad washerwoman named Peg Nicholson had
attempted to stab the King, George the Third, with
a carving-knife; the story had long been forgotten,
but it was then fresh in the recollection of every one.
It was proposed that we should ascribe the poems to
her. The poor woman was still living and in green
vigour within the walls of Bedlam ; but since her
existence must be uncomfortable, there could be no
harm in putting her to death, and in creating a
nephew and administrator to be the editor of his
aunt's poetical works.

" The idea gave an object and purpose to our
burlesque — to ridicule the strange mixture of senti-
mentality with the murderous fury of revolutionists
that was so prevalent in the compositions of the day ;
and the proofs were altered again to adapt them to
this new scheme, but still without any notion of pub-
lication. When the bookseller called to ask for the
proofs, Shelley told him that he had changed his mind,
and showed them to him.

" The man was so much pleased with the whimsical
conceit, that he asked to be permitted to publish the
book on his own account, promising inviolable secrecy,
and as many copies gratis as might be required. After

D 2,

5g PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

some hesitation permission was granted upon the
plighted honour of the trade.

" In a few days, or rather in a few hours, a noble
quarto appeared ; it consisted of a small number of
pages, it is true, but they were of the largest size, of
the thickest, the whitest, and the smoothest draw-
ing paper ; a large, clear, and handsome type had im-
pressed a few lines with ink of a rich glossy black
amidst ample margins. The poor maniac laundress
was gravely styled ' the late Mrs. Margaret Nicholson,
widow / and the sonorous name of Fitz Victor had
been culled for her inconsolable nephew and ad-
ministrator. To add to his dignity, the waggish
printer had picked up some huge text types of so
unusual a form that even an antiquary could not
spell the words at the first glance. Shelley had torn
open the large square bundle before the printer's boy
quitted the room, and holding out a copy with both
his hands, he ran about in an ecstasy of delight,
gazing at the superb title-page" (vol. i. pp. 265, 6).

Without noticing the remarkable good fortune of
Mr. Hogg in being always on the spot at a critical
moment of the conception, gestation, and safe delivery
of this poetical bantling, it may be stated that, with
the exception of Shelley's probable delight at the
appearance of the volume, all the other circumstances
maybe attributed to the fertile imagination of Mr. Hogg.

The poor maniac laundress is not gravely styled
" the late Mrs. Margaret Nicholson, widow/' nor is
her name mentioned in the whole volume except on
the title-page. The printer was " waggish " only to
the extent of using the type that he had in most
abundance. The paper to which I have already re-
ferred, The Oxford University and City Herald, and of

JOHN MUNDAY. 37

which I shall have much to say further on, was the
property of the same printer, and in it there is not a
column of advertisements that does not contain
frequent examples of this type. It is used in the ad-
vertisement of the book itself, as will presently be seen.

The name of the printer Mr. Hogg does not con-
descend to give us, although it will be found that
Shelley had other transactions with him besides the
publication of the Posthumous Fragments. Captain
Medwin, to whom it appears a copy of the volume
was sent, though he takes his whole description of it
from Mr. Hogg, states that it was " published at
Parker's." This of course is a mistake. It was printed
and published by John Munday, a name long and
honourably known in connexion with the city of
Oxford. Of him and of his family I have been
favoured, by the present representative of the firm of
Munday and Slatter, Mr. Rose, with some interesting
particulars, in a letter which will be found below.*

It will be seen from Mr. Hogg's own acknowledg-
ment that a considerable interval elapsed between his
first seeing the proofs and the final appearance of the
volume under the title of Posthumous Fragments of

* " Oxford, High Street, Dec. 3rd, 1870. "
"Sir, — Your letter asking for information about a Poetical
F.ssay, 1811, came duly to hand. I have made what inquiries were
possible, but without any success. There does not appear to be any
trace of the tract in the old books, so far as they are in my pos-
session. The family of Munday have disappeared from Oxford
long since, with the exception of a daughter of Joseph Munday,
living in the neighbourhood ; but the son, who succeeded to the
printing business, left Oxford many years since for Bristol, and is
since dead, so that all chance ot discovery from that source is
h°Peless- " I am, sir, your obedt. servt.

. " JOHN KOSE."

38 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

Margaret Nicholson. They were condemned, altered,
recast, retouched, rejected, and finally adopted after
much cogitation, and after intervals of " several days/'
To produce a volume of the elegance described would
in itself require a good deal of mechanical skill and
considerable time. It should also be remembered
that the book was produced in a printing office busily
occupied in bringing out a large weekly journal.
Altogether, the most impatient author could scarcely
expect under these circumstances that his productions
should be offered to the public in less than three
weeks. These reasonable conditions, if they are ad-
mitted, establish beyond doubt that these poems were
tirst shown to Mr. Hogg, not as he insinuates after his
intimacy with Shelley had been matured, and as a
natural result of their long acquaintance, but most
probably, as I have stated, on the first occasion he
ever paid the young poet a visit.

Mr. Hogg has told us that it was " one day at the
end of October, i8io/' on which he first saw Shelley.
The end of October must, of course, mean about the
3oth or 3 ist of that month. The two young men
thus for the first time brought together spent the
evening at Hogg's rooms. The host obligingly tells
us that he slept very soundly after the departure of
" the vivacious stranger" — so soundly indeed that next
day he forgot, not only the stranger himself, but the
promise he had made to visit him at his rooms. The
long conversation to which several of the preceding
pages had been devoted, thus congealed by the frost of
forgetfulness in one night, came out like the tunes in
the horn of Baron Munchausen's courier twenty-two
years afterwards. An hour, however, after the time
Mr. Hogg had promised to meet his young friend, he

A D VERTISEMENT OF MAROA RET NICHOLSON. 39

remembered Ms engagement and repaired to Shelley's
rooms. I have given the description of those rooms,
but we have now to do with the date. It was pro-
bably the ist of November. At the utmost stretch
it could only be a day or two earlier. On Saturday,
the 1 7th November, 1810, that is sixteen or eighteen
days after Hogg by his own showing first saw
Shelley, the following advertisement appears in The
Oxford University and City Herald : —

" Just Published, price 2*., Posthumous Fragments of MAE-
GAEET NICHOLSON ; being Poems found amongst the Papers of
that noted female, who attempted the life of the King in 1786.
Edited by 30t)n jFlt| FlCt0t, Oxford : Printed and sold by
J. Munday."

In this advertisement, which is almost identical with
the title-page, the name JOHN FITZ VICTOR is printed
in the large black-letter type used in the volume
itself. The advertisement is repeated a week later
in the next number of The Oxford Herald, the price
in the interval having risen to 2s. 6d.

The extent of the very slight acquaintance that
could have existed between Shelley and Mr. Hogg
whilst the Posthumous Fragments were passing through
the press being thus established, we may, without
much injury to Shelley, give Mr. Hogg the whole
credit of assigning them to Margaret Nicholson. That
was a stroke of humour quite worthy of some others
complacently recorded of himself by the biographer.
Shelley had written a wild rhapsody entitled Frag-
ment — Supposed to be an Epithalamium of Francis
Ravaillac and Charlotte Corde. This is described by
Mr. Hogg, in his most characteristic manner, as " a
poem concerning a young woman, one Charlotte Some-
body, who attempted to assassinate Robespierre or some

4o PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

sucli person." Poor Margaret Nicholson's happily
unsuccessful attempt on the life of the King preceded
by seven years the famous act of tyrannicide perpe-
trated by Charlotte Corday in 1793, not on Robespierre,
but on Marat. Careless of the anachronism, Mr.
Hogg boldly assigned the poem to the " mad washer-
woman" as a happy stroke of humour. The supposed
authoress speaks in the first poem of " wife and
children •" this, too, must be taken as a delicious bit
of burlesque, in making Mrs. Nicholson imagine herself
to have been a man and a father.* On the whole, we
cannot but think that the poems would have fared all
the better had they been published by Shelley, as they
evidently were written by him, as serious compositions.
One of them, " The Spectral Horseman/' is interesting
as showing that at this early period Shelley had begun
to take that interest in the history and legends of
Ireland which led to such extraordinary results two
years later. We have here " The Banshee's moan on
the storm ;" " A white courser, " like that of
O'Donoghue, " bears the shadowy sprite ;" " The
whirlwinds howl in the caves of Innisfallen.''

" Then does the dragon, who, chained in the caverns
To eternity, curses the champion of Erin,
Moan and yell loud at the lone hour of midnight."

Fragments, p. 25.

Extravagant as all these passages are, they show that
Shelley's sympathies for Ireland had already been
awakened, and that his practical efforts for her benefit
at a later period were not the result of any sudden or
passing caprice.

* This poem which, as previously noticed, Mr. Rossetti omitted
from his Annotated Edition, is given in the faithful reprint of the
original editions of Shelley's early poems recently issued by Mr.
Hotten — a volume remarkable for its accuracy and cheapness.

CHAPTER III.

"\ X WHILST the Posthumous Fragments of Margaret
Nicholson were thus passing through the press
at Oxford,, Shelley was in communication with Stock-
dale about the publication in London of a more im-
portant work. This was the prose romance of St»
Irvyne ; or, The Rosicrucian. Only three days before
The Oxford University and City Herald had announced
the publication of Margaret Nicholson — that is, on the
I4th of November, 1 810 — Shelley returned to Stockdale
the manuscript of St. Irvyne, thanking him at the same
time for the trouble he had taken " to fit it for the
press." The work thus " fitted for the press " by Mr.
Stockdale was placed at once in the hands of " S.
Gosnell, Little Queen Street, London/' by whom it
was printed. By the i7th of December, exactly one
month after the publication of Margaret Nicholson, St.
Irvyne was so far advanced that Stockdale announced
its immediate appearance. The announcement was
forwarded to Shelley, then at Field Place, who wrote
to the publisher in the following terms : —

"Field Place, December i8th, 1810.
" My dear Sir, —

" I saw your advertisement of The Rosicrucian,
and approve of it highly : it is likely to excite curiosity.
.... Mr. Munday, of Oxford, will take some
romances; I do not know whether he sends directly

42 PERCY BTSSHE SHELLEY.

to you, or through the medium of a bookseller. I will
enclose the printer's account for your inspection in

another letter.

" Dear Sir, yours sincerely,

" P. B. SHELLEY/'

From the last passage in this letter it would appear
that Shelley had undertaken the risk of printing St.
Irvyne himself. Mr. Stockdale, it is evident, had the
pleasure not only of inspecting the printer's account,
but of paying it also. This probably formed the
foundation of the debt due to him by Shelley, which,
" interest included/' he calculated in 1826 amounted
to 30O/. The rate of interest must have been high
indeed if it be true, as stated in a MS. journal of Dr.
Polidori, that the principal sum due on the ist of
August, 1 8 1 1, was about ioo/. Whatever the amount
was, Shelley, writing to Stockdale on that day, de-
clared his inability to pay it. He admits " the im-
prudence of publishing a book so ill-digested as St.
Irvyne" but still asks with a faint glimmer of hope,
" Are there no expectations on the profits of its sale ?"
This gleam, however, is but momentary ; for in the
next sentence he offers a new solution of the difficulty —
" My studies have, since my writing it, been of a
more serious nature. I am at present engaged in
completing a series of moral and metaphysical essays —
perhaps their copyright would be accepted in lieu of
part of my debt."

It is needless to say that this offer did not tempt
Mr. Stockdale to indulge a second time in the luxury
of inspecting and paying a printer's account, even
with the hope of adding the ideal interest thereon
which had so mysteriously expanded the first.

A REFUTATION OF DEISM. 43

Whether these moral and metaphysical essays were
substantially the same work to which Shelley alludes
in his letter to Stockdale of the i8th December, 1810,
from which I have already quoted, it is now impossible
to say. In that letter he writes : " I have in prepa-
ration a novel; it is principally constructed to convey
metaphysical and political opinions by way of conver-
sation. It shall be sent to you as soon as completed,
but it shall receive more correction than I trouble
myself to give to wild romance and poetry." Mr.
Garnett, referring to this subject, says : " Speedy extinc-
tion, too, was the fate of the MS. novel, of which the above
is the first and last mention." As to the novel, this
remark is doubtless true; but we certainly do hear
again of a work conveying " metaphysical and moral
opinions by way of conversation." The idea or plan
of a fiction may have been abandoned, and the sub-
stance and conversational form of the essays preserved
in a book of which Mr. Hogg gives us the following
curious account : —

" The year 1814 had come upon us. In that year
— and at the beginning of the year, I think — Shelley
published a work entitled A Refutation of Deism :
in a Dialogue. It is handsomely, expensively, and
very incorrectly printed in octavo. It was published
in a legal sense, unquestionably ; whether it was also
published in a publisher's sense and offered for sale I
know not, but I rather think that it was — the preface
informs us that it was intended it should be. I never
heard that anybody bought a copy ; the only copy I
ever saw is that which my friend kindly sent to me ;
it is inscribed by his own hand, on the title-page,
< To his friend T. Jefferson Hogg, from P. B. S/ I
never heard it mentioned any further than this, that

44 PERO Y B YSSHE SHELLEY.

two or three of the author's friends told me that it
had been sent as a present. It is a short dialogue,
comprised in 101 pages of large print. Eusebes and
Theosophus discourse together and dispute with each
other, much as the author loved to dispute when he
could find an opponent — whenever Eusebes could find
a Theosophus, and get up an antagonistic dialogue.
It is written in his powerful, energetic, contentious
style, but it contains nothing new or important, and
was composed and printed also in a hurry. He never
spoke of it to me, or in my presence. It attracted
no attention, and doubtless Shelley himself soon dis-
covered that it did not merit it." — Life of Shelley, vol.
ii. pp. 484, 485.

How Mr. Hogg could have known that this work
was " composed and printed also in a hurry," when
Shelley never spoke of it to him or in his presence,
is one of those mysteries of intuition so frequently
propounded for our belief throughout his book. It
is apparently the same work which Shelley had planned
in December, 1810, and which he determined should
receive " more correction than he troubled himself to
give to wild romance and poetry." The description
Mr. Hogg gives of this book is fuller than usual, and
may lead to its recovery. There is always, however,
something incomplete and unsatisfactory even in his
most minute analysis when dealing with facts. He
tells us that " a long quotation is given in a note from
Plutarch's treatise on eating flesh. It is in the
original Greek, without any translation either in
English or in Latin — a convincing proof that the
dialogue was not addressed to unlearned readers" (Life,
vol. ii. p. 486). This Mr. Hogg gives without the

TEA NSLA TION FROM PL UTA RCH. 45

slightest reference to what lie had printed but a few
pages before, in a letter of Shelley's dated Edinburgh,
Nov. 26th, 1813.

" I have translated the two Essays of Plutarch, irtpl
aapKoyayicLQ, which we read together. They are very
excellent. I intend to comment upon them, and to
reason in my preface concerning the Orphic and
Pythagoric system of diet/' — Life, vol. ii. p. 482.

It will be amusing, as another example of Mr.
Hogg's sublime indifference to facts, to find, when-
ever a copy of A Refutation of Deism is discovered,
that the "long quotation from Plutarch's treatise on
eating flesh," left in the original Greek for learned
readers as a note, is translated into English for " un-
learned readers" in the " Preface."*

But we must now return to St. Irvyne, which we
have abandoned rather unceremoniously on the first
day of its existence.

An announcement of the birth was published, as we
have seen, a day or two before the i8th of December,
1810 ; but the new arrival showed little signs of life,
if we may judge by the silence of the papers, until
towards the end of January, 1811. The advertisement,

* A long quotation from the same treatise of Plutarch, both in
Greek and English, concludes the notes to Queen Malt, in Clark's
edition of 182 1. It would appear from a notice signed " W. Clark,"
on p 92 of this edition, that the notes of the original Queen Mob
of 1813, "in French, Latin, and Greek," were not translated.
In the editions of Queen Mab by John Brooks (1829), Mrs.
Shelley and Mr. Rossetti, the passage from Plutarch is not trans-
lated. In those of Clark, 1821 ; Carlile, 1822 (the same book
with Carlile's imprint) arid Carlile 1823, with the titlepage of the
original edition of 1813, the passage is given in Greek and English.
In the edition said to be printed at " New York, by William
Baldwin," 1821, the translation alone is given.

46 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

which Shelley thought was « likely to excite curiosity/'
began to appear more frequently. Except the head-
ing, "The University Romance/' there is nothing
in it different from ordinary advertisements. I tran-
scribe it from The Times of Saturday, January 26th,
1811, and Saturday, February 2nd, 1811 :—

" THE UNIVEKSITY ROMANCE. — This day is published, price
only 5$., St. Irvyne ; or, The Rosicrucian : A Romance. By a
Gentleman of Oxford University. Printed for Stockdale Junior,
41, Pail-Mall."

St. Irvyne has one advantage, and one only, over
Zastrozzi — it is considerably shorter : in every other
respect it is as unreal, imperfect, and puerile as his first
attempt. Shelley believed that at least it would have
made a bigger book than Zastrozzi, but in this he was
mistaken, as though printed in a somewhat larger type
it fills exactly sixteen pages less. St. Irvyne, though
not published until the end of 1810, was probably
written while Zastrozzi was passing through the press
in the earlier part of the same year. He tells us
himself that the second title of the story, The Rosi-
crucian, is derived from St. Leon : " What I mean as
f Rosicrucian' is, the elixir of eternal life. Mr. God-
win's romance of ' St. Leon' turns upon that super-
stition " It has not, however, been noticed that its
first title, St. Irvyne, may have been suggested to him.
by a locality in which he had spent some of the
happiest hours of his life in the company of his first
love, Harriet Grove. Lady Shelley calls this place
St. Leonard's,* but Mr. C. Grove, who formed one of
the party described in the following interesting passage
of a letter addressed by him to Miss Hellen Shelley,

* Meaning probably St. Leonard's Forest, in a part of which
lay the seat of the Duke of Norfolk.

ST. IRVYNE. 47

the poet's sister, in 1857, speaks of it as St. Irving' s, a
name singularly like that of Shelley's romance : —

" I did not meet Bysshe again/' says Mr. Grove,
" till I was fifteen, the year I left the navy, and then
I went to Field Place with Harriet [Grove]. Bysshe
was there, having just left Eton, and his sister
Elizabeth. Bysshe was at that time more attached
to my sister Harriet than I can express, and I re-
collect well the moonlight walks* we four had at Strode,
and also at St. Irving' s ; that, I think, was the name
of the place, then the Duke of Norfolk's, at Horsham."t
After this, in a parenthesis, is the following fuller
description : " St. Irving's Hills, a beautiful place on
the right-hand side as you go from Horsham to Field
Place, laid out by the famous Capability Brown, and
full of magnificent forest-trees, waterfalls, and rustic
seats. The seat was Elizabethan. All has been
destroyed." Mr. Grove adds "that was in 1810" —
evidently a mistake for the summer of 1809, as cor-
rectly given by Lady Shelley. — Hogg's Life of Shelley,
vol. ii. pp. 550, 551 ; Shelley Memorials, p. 13.

* The moon, as might be expected, figures conspicuously in
St. Irvyne. One or two passages may be given : — " The moon
became as bright as polished silver, and each star sparkled with
scintillations of inexpressible whiteness" (p. 194). And again, " I
gazed in eager anticipation of curiosity on the scene before me ;
for a mist of silver radiance rendered every object but myself im-
perceptible; yet was it brilliant as the noonday sun" (St. Irvyne,
p. 194).

t " Hill Place" is the name given to it in Beauties of England
and Wales. London, 1813. "In the same direction, on the
right of the road, is an old seat called Hill Place, formerly the
property of the late Viscountess Irwin, but now belonging to the
Duke of Norfolk" (Sussex, p. 97).

Mr. Howard, of Corby Castle, tells me it was sold after the
death of Duke Charles in 1815. The " Viscountess Irwin" may
perhaps have suggested the name " Irving" to Mr. Grove.

43 PEROT BYSSHE SHELLEY.

As the place was called St. Irving's by Mr. Grove,
it may so have been remembered by Shelley ; and even
apart" from the associations connected with the pre-
sence of Harriet Grove and Elizabeth Shelley, it was a
locality that may well be supposed to have lingered
in the memory of the poet.

It is stated that St. Irvyne as well as Zastrozzi re-
ceived a good deal of notice from the press. This
statement, which seems rather improbable, I have not
been able to confirm after a diligent search. In ex-
amining the reviews and periodicals of the period for
some trace or record of the missing poem published
by Shelley in 1811, which will presently be more fully
described, the names of these romances would have
arrested my attention, but I do not recollect haviog
met a single allusion to them. The second romance,
however, had an admirer, and a warm one, in a very
unexpected quarter. " Fortunately for himself/' says
Mr. Rossetti, in his Memoir of Shelley (p. Ixi.), " Hogg
had probably not read St. Irvyne, or he would have
found that that name designates a locality, and not a
man." It might be urged that perhaps it designated
neither. The interest of more than half the story,
and that its concluding portion, entirely rests upon
Eloise de St. Irvyne, a sort of newer Nouvelle Heloise,
who may be considered its heroine, after the astound-
ing Megalena de Metastasio is disposed of, and from
whom it may have derived its name. But whether
Mr. Hogg read the romance or not, he praised it ; so
much so, indeed, that the modest and perhaps con-
scientious author had to deprecate the infrequent,
perhaps the unique, adulation of his friend. " Why
will you compliment St. Irvyne ? '' says Shelley in a
letter to Mr. Hogg, dated Sunday, May I7th, 1811 —

THE IRISH MELODIES. 49

a question which that gentleman doubtless would
have found it very difficult to answer.

As in the case of Margaret Nicholson's Posthumous
Fragments, St. Irvyne supplies additional proof of
the interest which Ireland was then beginning to
awaken in the mind of Shelley. The witchery of the
Irish Melodies had already enthralled him. He even
goes the length of making the exceptional moral
person in his book an Irishman. Compared with " the
unhappy Wolfs tein" and the " awe-inspiring Ginotti,"
the Englishman, Mountfort, may be regarded with
some favour,, but he is not immaculate. He has,
however, a inore perfect companion.

" What companion ?" Eloise interrupted him, in-
quiringly. " Why/' replied he, " a friend of mine,
who lives at my cottage ; he is an Irishman, and so
very moral, and so averse to every species of gdiete de
coeur, that you need be under no apprehensions." " He
wanders about, writes poetry, and, in short" — appears
to be a very harmless sort of person. He eventually
becomes the husband of Eloise, who having " stout
notions on the marrying score," would have willingly
dispensed with what she considered a superfluous
ceremony. " Nay, do not start," says the gentle Fitz-
eustace, when he proposes to the fair Eloise the hard
condition of submitting to the " harmless " formality
of being legally married. He probably composed her
by the charm which he had found so potent in an
earlier scene.

" Recline on this sofa, then," said Fitzeustace, " and
I will play some of those Irish tunes you admire so
much."

" Eloise reclined on the sofa, and Fitzeustace, seated
on the floor, began to play. The melancholy plaintive-

50 PERCY BTSSHE SHELLEY.

ness of liis music touched Eloise — she sighed, and
concealed her tears in her handkerchief. At length
she sank into a profound sleep : still Fitzeustace con-
tinued playing, noticing not that she slumbered. He
now perceived that she spoke, but in so low a tone that
he knew she slept » (St. Irvyne* pp. 209, 21 6, i 1 7, 280).

The way in which Shelley disposes of all his cha-
racters— not in the book itself, but in a private letter
to his publisher — is amusing. Stockdale, after " fitting
the work for the press/' rubbed his eyes when all was
over, to perceive if possible what had become of the
various personages. Like the ferryman in the ballad
of Kopisch,t he stood bewildered ; the eljin people had
all vanished, and he held in his hand nothing but
crumpled leaves. Shelley came to his relief.

" Ginotti, as you will perceive, did not die by Wolf-
stein's hand, but by the influence of that natural
magic which, when the secret was imparted to the
latter, destroyed him. Mountfort being a character
of inferior import, I did not think it necessary to
state the catastrophe of him., as it could at best be
but uninteresting. Eloise and Fitzeustace are married
and happy, I suppose, and Megalena dies by the
same means as Wolfstein. I do not myself see any
other explanation that is required/' — Letter dated
" University Coll., Nov. I4th, 1810," in Stockdale' s
Budget.

As my readers will probably be not more exacting

* In 1822, after the death of Shelley, Stockdale reproduced the
old sheets of St. Irvyne, with a title page dated that year. It is
from a copy of this reissue in my own possession that the above
extracts are given.

t The Fairies' Passage. The translation of James Clarence
Mangan.

SHELLEY AND NEWSPAPERS. 51

than Mr. Stockdale, with this epilogue of the author
we shall take our leave of St. Irvyne.

In the second letter which Shelley addressed to
Godwin, then personally unknown to him, dated
" KESWICK, January loth, i8j2," he thus epitomizes in
one sentence the results of his academic career : —

" Classical reading and poetical writing employed me
during my residence at Oxford " (Hegg, vol. ii. p. 56).

As far as we have yet gone in this investigation,
the only evidence of poetical writing that has been
presented to us is the collection of poems, serious or
burlesque, whichever they may be considered to be,
that he published under the name of Margaret
Nicholson. Indeed Mr. Hogg leaves it to be inferred
that with that sublime effort of genius the poetical
aspirations of his young friend were satisfied, and
that he printed nothing subsequently, either in prose
or verse, while at the University, but the unfortunate
syllabus entitled The Necessity of Atheism. How
completely this is the reverse of the fact will presently
be shown. It will be proved that he not only indulged
in " poetical writing " to a much greater extent than
might be supposed from the silence of his biographer
on that point, but that he published a distinct volume
of verse — the earliest that "came entirely from his
own hand — a fact which, after the lapse of sixty years,
it has been the good fortune of the present writer to
have discovered.

Among the many loose though dogmatic assertions
of Mr. Hogg, for which there is not a tittle of
evidence, and that are absolutely contradicted by the
facts, is one to the effect that Shelley not only had a
dislike to newspapers, but that they never reached him
while at the University. " A newspaper never found

E 7,

51 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

its way to his rooms the whole period of his residence
at Oxford " (Life, vol. i. p. 257). How Shelley could
have written and published a volume of verse without
his friend knowing anything about it, and yet be unable
to receive a single newspaper unseen by that keen-eyed
Argus, is a difficulty not easily got over. And yet this
reckless assertion is adopted by later writers without the
slightest investigation. So far from Shelley being in-
different to newspapers and to writers in newspapers,
we find him at Oxford alive to the passing political
events of the day — writing to the editors of news-
papers, identifying himself with their opinions, con-
gratulating them on their triumphs, indignant at their
persecution, and, stranger than all, publishing a poem
for the sustainment in prison of one of them who was
considered by the leading Liberals of the day, as well
as by Shelley, a martyr for the liberty of the Press.

Captain Medwin was determined not to be outdone
by his rival biographer Mr. Hogg, in affecting an
intimate acquaintance with the private habits of their
illustrious friend. The infallible Mr. Hogg had
declared ex cathedra that " a newspaper never found
its way to his rooms the whole period of his residence
at Oxford." At a time when Shelley was engaged
in writing to the editors of three newspapers, and
publishing a poem for the sustainment of one of them
who had been imprisoned, Mr. Hogg puts into the
mouth of his friend the following marvellous statement :
" With how unconquerable an aversion do I shrink
from political articles and reviews I" Sometimes, alas !
he had to endure the affliction. " When waiting in
a bookseller's shop or at an inn," says Mr. Hogg,
relaxing a little from the severity of his first assertion,
" he would sometimes, although rarely, permit his eye

ABSURD STA TEMENTS DISPRO VED. 5 3

to be attracted bj a murder or a storm !" What a
careful watch had Mr. Hogg at this time over his
young friend, when he stole behind his chair and
looked over his shoulder to know the precise article
that engaged the attention of the poet ! What a
high idea he gives of the subjects most interesting to
the youthful philanthropist !

Captain Medwin, as we have said,, affects to be
equally well informed as to Shelley's habits in this
respect at a later period of his life. Speaking of his
visit to the poet, at Pisa, in 1831, he says: — " Never
have I seen him read a newspaper/' This, no doubt,
may be perfectly true when taken as a personal
recollection of the writer. It is, however, relied upon
by those who, having adopted the earlier assertion of
Mr. Hogg as to Shelley's dislike to newspapers, see
in Captain Medwin's statement a complete confirma-
tion of it. We have already disposed of Mr. Hogg's
delusion — the imparting to his friend sentiments and
prejudices that were clearly his own. If additional
arguments are necessary, they will be found in the
single fact that within twelve months of the time at
which this aversion to newspapers is said to have
existed in the mind of Shelley, he was endeavouring
to establish one himself, of which he would have the
entire control. This occurred in Dublin, as will be
fully detailed in our subsequent account of Shelley's
visit to that city.

The fact is immaterial whether Captain Medwin
ever saw Shelley read a newspaper or not, when we
have it under his own hand, in letters written from
Italy, that he not only received newspapers, but sub-
scribed for them. The following extracts are taken
from Mr. Peacock's papers in Fraser's Magazine,

54 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

where the letters are published. Writing from Leg-
horn, June, 1819, Shelley says— " Cobbett still more
and more delights me, with all my horror of the
sanguinary commonplaces of his creed" (Fraser,
March, 1860, p. 308). Later in the same year he

says « The Examiners I receive. Hunt, as a political

writer, pleases me more and more " (August, 1819).
" Many thanks for your attention in sending the
papers which contain the terrible and important

news of Manchester Pray let me have the

earliest political news which you consider important
at this crisis" (September, 1819). "I have received
all the papers you sent me, and the Examiners regu-
larly " (September, 1819). " / take in Galignani's
paper, which is filled with extracts from The Courier3'
(Pisa, May, 1820). "The Paris paper which I take
in copied some excellent remarks from The Examiner"
(Leghorn, July, 1820). Finally, at the end of the
same letter, he begs of his friend Peacock to send him,
with a number of books which he mentions, "Papers,
' Indicators/ and whatever else you may think interest-
ing." So much for the accuracy of Shelley's biogra-
phers, from Mr. Hogg to Captain Medwin, and the
followers of both.

Putting aside this newspaper controversy, at least
for a while, we may return to the account which
Shelley himself gives of his occupations during the
brief term of his University career. " Classical read-
ing and poetical writing employed me during my
residence at Oxford" (Letter to Godwin, Keswick,
January loth, 1812). The only evidence of "poetical
writing " that has yet been adduced is the curious
volume entitled Posthumous Fragments of Margaret
Nicholson. That work, slight and trifling as it is,

" THE OXFORD UNIVERSITY AND CITY HERALD." 55

was published, as we have shown, within three weeks
after Shelley's entrance at the University. If the
time of his going to Oxford is correctly given by Mr.
Hogg and by Lady Shelley, these poems must have
been written by Shelley in the interval between his
leaving Eton and his entrance at University College.
One would expect more results from this systematic
prosecution of " classical reading and poetical writing"
than the Fragments, which are plainly the product
of earlier studies and earlier inspirations. Whenever
the missing poem — the fact of the publication of which
we have discovered — is found, it will probably justify
the assertion of Shelley, that when at Oxford he oc-
cupied himself in "poetical writing" as well as "clas-
sical reading." While waiting for the appearance
of that poem, which will be most interesting as the
first poetical work published by Shelley without the
assistance or co-operation of an ally, any poems pub-
lished at this period which with reasonable probability
may be attributed to him must awaken a certain
amount of curiosity.

Wre have spoken of The Oxford University and
City Herald, of which John Munday, the publisher of
Margaret Nicholson, was printer. We shall shortly
find Shelley's name avowedly in that paper, and in
that paper is the earliest advertisement of the missing
poem to which we have so often referred. The Eng-
lish epigram on a watch, which Shelley translated
into Latin, appeared, as we have pointed out, in The
Oxford Herald so early as September i6th, 1809. We
have suggested that the member for Shoreham (Mr.
Timothy Shelley) could scarcely have done less than
support by his subscription a Liberal journal which
probably circulated largely in Sussex and the adjacent

56 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

counties. Should this surmise be correct, the paper
was, of course, week after week forwarded to Field
Place, and thus, even before he went to Oxford, may
have been frequently in the hands of the young poet.

It seems strange that no one has hitherto examined
the Oxford journals of 1810 and 1811 for some traces
of Shelley while at the University. The details given
by Mr. Hogg are so copious, and appear to be so
authentic, that curiosity was satisfied, and subsequent
writers were content with reproducing in one form or
another the elaborate narrative of that gentleman. It
was difficult, it is true, to see those papers even at
Oxford, as I am informed by the courteous librarian
of the Bodleian that no Oxford journals of those years
are preserved in that library. The British Museum
is more fortunate, as it possesses in a tolerably com-
plete state a copy of The Oxford University and City
Herald for the years in which, on Shelley's account,
we are most interested. This copy was " purchased
at the sale of Mr. Heber's books, June, 1834," as
mentioned on the fly-leaf of the volume, which contains,
with some exceptions, the numbers from December,
1806, to the a8th February, 1815. The numbers for
1810 seem to be quite perfect, as are those of 1811 to
the 2Qth of September.

Through all these years The Oxford Herald seems
to have preserved a uniform character. Its politics
were ultra-Liberal, especially on all questions connected
with the liberty of the Press. It appeared once a
week, on Saturday, and was " printed and published
by John Munday, at The Herald Office, High Street,
Oxford." The name of J. Munday as printer is
changed in the number for January i2th, 181 1, to those
of " Munday and Slatter/' by whom it was subse-

POEMS SIGNED "&" IN "THE OXFORD HERALD." 57

quently carried on. In the same number there is an
advertisement of " Munday and Slatter, Printers and
Booksellers, Herald Office, High Street, Oxford/' A
son of John Munday succeeded him in the business,
but on his leaving Oxford, as mentioned in the in-
teresting letter by the present representative of the
firm, Mr. John Rose, which has already been given,
the establishment was carried on under the names
of Slatter and Rose.

The Oxford Herald appears to have been conducted
with a good deal of literary ability and taste. A
column was usually devoted to a prose essay on some
of the older English poets. Crashaw and other
writers of the same period and school — such as Cowley,
traces of whose influence may perhaps be found in the
lyrical poetry of Shelley — are frequently mentioned.
One of these essays, signed " P. S./' appeared during
the period of Shelley's residence, and may possibly
have been written by him. There is a marked absence,
however, of original poetry in The Oxford Herald, or of
verse written expressly for publication in that journal.
Political squibs and lengthy odes are in abundance, but
they are generally taken at second-hand from The
Morning Chronicle. Sometimes a poem appeared on
the same day in the two journals. With the ap-
proach of Shelley a change appears in this respect
in the pages of the paper; original verse begins
to appear, is continued during his residence at the
University, and ceases when he leaves it. By
original verse I mean, as I have said, verse pub-
lished originally in The Oxford Herald. Most of
these are signed with the letter " S/" They are
chiefly translations from the Greek Anthology (of
which in his collected works we have undoubted

58 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

specimens) and from the Latin poems of Vincent
Bourne. Here is curiously combined in the same
pieces some evidence of the " classical reading " and
" poetical writing " of which he himself has spoken.
These translations do not possess any remarkable
merit, nor have they that peculiar Shelleyan flavour
by which we can so easily recognise his later poems.
They are, however, not inferior to most that he had
written up to this period. The signature attached to
them, the time at which they appeared, the journal in
which they were published, and the course of his
studies at the time, all create an amount of presump-
tive evidence that justify me in offering them here as
having in all probability been written by Shelley.

Before the ordinarily received time of his arrival at
Oxford, however, and as an av ant-courier of the coming
poet, there appeared in The Oxford Herald a short
poem which, as I conceive, possesses to a remarkable
degree that peculiar Shelleyan flavour of which I
have spoken. This little poem cannot, of course, be
put in comparison with some of those exquisite lyrics
written by Shelley in his later years — lyrics with which,
in fact, nothing in the language can be compared.
But there is something essentially Shelleyesque both
in the language and the ideas. If the lines were not
written by Shelley, they were the composition of some
young poet who anticipated Shelley himself in what
was peculiarly characteristic of Shelley. As Pope said
of Chapman's translation of the Iliad, that it was
" something like what one would imagine Homer him-
self would have writ before he arrived at years of
discretion;" so this little poem may be offered as
something like what Shelley would have sung before
he attained the full faculty of lyrical expression : —

ODE TO THE DEATH OF SUMMER. 59

ODE

TO THE DEATH OF ST7MMEB.

Zephyr, whither art thou straying,

Tell me where :
With prankish girls in gardens playing,

False and fair ;

A butterfly's light back bestriding ;
Queen bees to honeysuckles guiding, •
Or in a swinging harebell riding,

Free from care ?

Before Aurora's car you amble

High in air ;
At noon, when Neptune's sea-nymphs gambol,

Braid their hair ;

When on the trembling billows rolling,
Or on the smooth sands idly strolling,
Or in cool grottoes they lie lolling,

You sport there.

To chase the moonbeams up the mountains,

You prepare :
Or dance with elves on brinks of fountains,

Mirth to share ;

Now seen with love-lorn lilies weeping,
Now with a blushing rosebud sleeping ;
Whilst fays from forth their chambers peeping,

Cry, Oh rare!

The braiding the hair of the sea-nymphs by the
breeze — the personification of the "love-lorn lilies" —
the intense enjoyment of Nature throughout, and the
abrupt exclamation at the end, all raise a strong
probability that this lyric was written by Shelley. It
appeared in The Oxford Herald of Saturday, Sep-
tember 22nd, 1810. Shelley was then at Field Place,
as we have letters in the Stockdale correspondence
dated there, both before and immediately after. As
Shelley had sent so far as Edinburgh to the Messrs.
Ballantyne the MS. of his long poem The Wandering

60 PERCY BTSSHE SHELLEY.

Jew, written in conjunction with Captain Medwin, to
which they refer in their curious letter of the 24th of
September, 1810, there is no improbability in his
having sent a short lyric to Oxford for publication in
a local paper. It should be noticed that the poem is
printed very conspicuously in The Oxford Herald,
at the top of a column not usually devoted to litera-
ture, whether in justice to the merits of the composi-
tion itself, or in deference to the social position of the
supposed writer, cannot now be ascertained.

The evidence of authorship in the (f Ode to the
Death of Summer" is altogether, or nearly so, internal.
In the translations from the Greek Anthologia it is
perhaps exclusively external, arising from the signature
and the classical character of the poems themselves.
The first of these versions from the Greek is given in
The Oxford University and City Herald of Saturday,
January 5th, 1811: —

THE GBAPE.
From the Greek AntJwlogia.

This grape, of future wine the store,

Who from the tree unripen'd bore ?

And, loathing its yet acid taste,

Thus on the ground half-eaten cast ?

To every footstep passing by

The spurn'd remains obnoxious lie ; —

To him, the foe of mirth and love,

May Bacchus ever hostile prove,

As to the barb'rous prince of yore

Who Thracia's blooming vines uptore : —

This grape, thus wantonly abus'd,

When in the sparkling glass infus'd,

This might have warm'd some poet's lay,

Or chased corroding care away ! S.

In the next number, for January i^th, i Sir, is the
following : —

EPIGRAMS FROM THE GREEK ANTHOLOGIA. 61

EPIGEAM.
From the Greek Anthologia.

Supposed to be spolcen by some Roses on the Birth*day of a
Beautiful Girl who was on the Point of Marriac/e.

We that were wont in Spring's soft lap to bloom,

Now early blush, 'mid Winter's dreary gloom,

And on this day we smiling hail thy charms,

That soon, sweet maid, shall bless a husband's arms ;

More pleased thy lovely temples to adorn,

Than wait the rising of the vernal morn. S.

The series of epigrams from the Greek is here
interrupted by one from the Latin. The signature
" S. " is changed also for " VERSIFICATOR;" but the
writer is evidently the same person, as the translations
from the Anthologia are resumed under the latter signa-
ture on March 9th, 1811, sixteen days before Shelley's
expulsion, after which they no longer appear.

In The Oxford Herald of Saturday, February 23rd,
1811, is the following: —

TEANSLATTON OF AN EPIGEAM OF VINCENT BOTJENE.

Down the river's gentle tide,
As to London Bridge we glide,
Hark ! the bells of Mary's tower
Sweetly warbled music pour !
With what harmony and grace
Each preserves its stated place !
While the air, above, around,
Trembles with the varied sound.

Merry changes ceaseless glide

To old Thames's willow'd side :

Still recede, and sweeter still

Through the raptur'd breast they thrill,

Such the pleasure to our hearts

Distant melody imparts —

Enter once within the tow'r,

All the harmony is o'er. — VEESIFICATOB.*

* Since this page was in type I have found in The Oxford

62 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

The Oxford Herald of Saturday, March 9th, 1811,
contains two epigrams from the Greek, with which, as
I have stated, the series closes : —

ON OLD AGE.
From the Greek Anthologia.

Mortals for age, when distant, pray ;
Age, when at hand, they wish away ;
The thing of which we're not possest,
We constantly esteem the best. — VEKSIFICATOK.

VENUS AND THE MUSES.
From the same.

The Queen of Love once threatening vow'd,

Unless the Nine her sway allow'd,

That Cupid's never-erring dart

Should quickly pierce them to the heart.

Then they : " On Mars your menace try,

The little urchin we defy." — VEKSIFICATOR.

There is one thing very remarkable about these last
two epigrams in connexion with the suggestion I have
ventured to make as to their authorship, and it is this,
that they appear in the same number of The Oxford
Herald which contains the earliest advertisement of the
poem unknown to all Shelley's biographers, to his widow
and to his family, which he published on that day.

Before entering on this curious and most interest-
ing subject, we have to retrace our steps a little, and
resume the inquiry as to Shelley 's connexion with the
editors of newspapers, and the interest which he took
in the political questions of the day.

Herald another translation from Vincent Bourne, signed" S. S

Edmonton." Whatever effect this may have on the suggestion
thrown out above, it is only right that it should be mentioned.

CHAPTER IV.

T T is not the least of the peculiarities connected with
Shelley's singular story, that while so much that
was not only written but published by him remains,
and will probably always remain, undiscovered, so
many attempts have been- made to pass off forged and
supposititious documents as his. The most celebrated
example of this ingenious mode of trading on the
growing celebrity of the poet is the well-known
collection of so-called Letters of Percy Bysshe
Shdiey, published in 1852, and edited, it is to be
presumed much to his own subsequent chagrin, by
Mr. Robert Browning. This publication, it is scarcely
necessary to say, was immediately withdrawn from
circulation, and has now become scarce. That some
of the letters are forgeries there can be no question,
but others, it is almost certain, are genuine. Indeed,
it is not easy to see how the counterfeits could have
been manufactured without the forgers having some
authentic originals to imitate. All the circumstances
of the case point to the first letter of the collection as
being a genuine document. If so, it is the earliest
piece of political writing which we have from the
pen of Shelley.

Shelley, into whose rooms, if we are to believe
Mr. Hogg, "a newspaper never found its way the
whole period of his residence at Oxford, " thus addresses
the editor of a London newspaper from Oxford : —

64 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

" To the Editor of The Statesman, London.

" University College, Oxford, Feb. 22, 1811.

<t sir;_The present age has been distinguished from
every former period of English history by the number
of those writers who have suffered the penalties of the
law for the freedom and the spirit with which they
descanted on the morals of the age, and chastised the
vices or ridiculed the follies of individuals of every
rank of life, and among every description of society.
In former periods of British civilization, as during the
flourishing ages of Greece and Rome, the oratorical
censor and the satirical poet were regarded as
exercising only that just pre-eminence to which superior
genius and an intimate knowledge of life and human
nature were conceived to entitle them. The Mac
Flecknoe of Dryden, the Dunciad and the satirical
imitations of Pope, remained secure from molestation
by the Attorney- General ; the literary castigators of
a Bolingbroke and a Wharton enjoyed the triumph of
truth and justice unawed by ex-officios ; and Addison
could describe a coward and a liar without being called
to account for his inuendos by the interference of the
judicial servants of the King.

" But times are altered, and a man may now be
sent to prison for a couple of years, and ruined per-
haps for life, because he ' calls a spade a spade/ and
tells a public individual the very truths that are
obvious to the most partial of his friends.*

* This passage proves almost conclusively that the person
addressed as "Editor of The Statesman" must have been
Mr. Finnerty. The " public individual" of whom he published
those " obvious truths" that were pronounced a libel by Lord Ellen-
borough was Lord Castlereagh. The former editor of The States-
man, Mr. Lovell, was suffering imprisonment for a different offence.

LETTER TO THE EDITOR OF "THE STATESMAN." 65

" As I am not in the number of those determined
censors to whom Newgate is an elysium, and whom
the very idea of being persecuted by the Attorney-
General exhilarates more effectually than all the
treasures of the Castalian fountain; yet as I love to
speculate on the virtues and the vices of the world, it
has been the object of my anxious study to discover
some honest and easy means of speaking the whole
truth, without incurring the vengeance of Government.
The ultimate intention of my aim is to induce a meeting
of such enlightened, unprejudiced members of the com-
munity, whose independent principles expose them to
evils which might thus become alleviated ; and to form a
methodical society which should be organized so as to
resist the coalition of the enemies of liberty, which at
present renders any expression of opinion on matters of
policy dangerous to individuals.

" Although perfectly unacquainted with you privately,
I address you as a common friend to liberty, thinking
that, in cases of this urgency and importance, etiquette
ought not to stand in the way of usefulness. With the
hope of securing your co-operation,

" I remain, Sir,

" Your most obedient servant,

" PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY."

This letter, whatever its claim to authenticity may
be, is dated February 22nd, 1811. Six days later —
that is, on the 2nd of March in the same year—
Shelley addressed, for the first time, another news-
paper editor then personally unknown to him, but who
became a few years later one of his most valued and
intimate friends — Leigh Hunt.

Whatever question may be raised as to the

F

66 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

genuineness of the letter " to the Editor of The
Statesman," there can be none as to that which
Shelley addressed " to the Editor of The Examiner."
The original autograph is still probably in existence,
having been in the possession of Mr. George Henry
Lewes in 1841, who published it for the first time
in his article on Percy Bysshe Shelley in the North
British Review of that year. There is, however, some
difficulty about it. In the first place, the super-
scription of the letter is not given, and we are
therefore in doubt whether it was addressed "to the
Editor of The Examiner" or " to Leigh Hunt "by name.
In the copy of this letter which Mr. Hogg very re-
luctantly published in the second volume of his
Life of Shelley, and which he was not aware had
been already in print for seventeen years, the words
" to Leigh Hunt " are no doubt added ; but this was
merely done for his information by Mrs. Shelley, as
will be plain from his own account of the matter : —

(t A strange epistle," says Mr. Hogg, " of which a
copy in Mrs. Shelley's writing has lately been placed
in my hands, may be conveniently introduced and
noticed in this place as being connected with the
subject, although it was written two years before, during
our residence at Oxford." — Life, vol. ii. pp. 187, 188.

This is truly a wonderful specimen of Mr. Hogg's
" convenient )J mode of manipulating materials en-
trusted to him when he finds they are directly contra-
dictory to some passionate or petulant dictum pro-
pounded by himself in some other portion of his
confused and chaotic biography. One would think
that a letter written by Shelley when at Oxford might
be more " conveniently introduced and noticed" when
describing his residence there in 1811, than forcibly

LETTER TO " THE EXAMINER" WHEN PUBLISHED. 67

wrenched out of its proper place and given in his corre-
spondence from Tanyralt in 1 8 1 2. But this would not
suit the plan of Mr. Hogg. Having committed himself
in his original essays published in the New Monthly
Magazine to the absurd declaration that " a newspaper
never found its way to his rooms the whole period of his
residence at Oxford/' it would not do in the reprint-
ing of those papers to put side by side with that state-
ment a document which completely established its
inaccuracy, if not its absolute untruth. He therefore
relegates the tell-tale letter of March and, 1 8 1 1, to the
safe limbo of his second volume, by which time ordinary
readers had quite forgotten the fable of the first.

The disconcerted biographer had, however, to publish
the letter somewhere, and he does so at length, but
with a very bad grace. A better biographer than Mr.
Hogg, but one who has unfortunately adopted too
many of the loose and unfounded statements of that
gentleman, speaks of the two volumes of the Life of
Shelley as " Mr. Hogg's irresistibly amusing book."
If it be amusing, it is certainly at the expense of Mr.
Hogg himself, and not at that of some of his characters
(including his hero), whom he attempts to hold up to
ridicule. Thus it is, that when he discovers Shelley
had done certain acts and written certain letters about
which he had not thought it necessary to consult his
" guide, philosopher, and friend," Mr. Thomas Jeffer-
son Hogg, those acts and those letters are at once
condemned as the ne plus ultra of folly, of which in
his after-life Shelley was heartily ashamed. Had Mr.
Hogg lived to find out that the divine poet, his incom-
parable friend, not only ventured to send letters with-
out his knowledge, but absolutely had the audacity to
write and publish poems and pamphlets without the

68 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

"imprimatur" of Mr. J. F. H., what would have
been his surprise ! how " amusing " the description of
Shelley's subsequent shame ! Unhappily, however,
we have not the third and fourth volumes of the
" irresistibly amusing book/' and must be content
with the first and second. The present sample could
scarcely be exceeded. " The truth is," says Mr. Hogg,
making a clean breast of it, " my poor friend knew
well that it was quite wrong " (that is, to have written
a generous letter to Leigh Hunt), " because he never
communicated his intentions to myself, or to any of his
friends ; he never told me what he had done, being un-
questionably ashamed of his precipitancy ; he never
showed me the letter or the answer to it, if he ever
received one." — Life, vol. ii. p. 190.

Before giving this letter, which it is necessary to print
for the illustration of this part of my subject, one or
two other instances of these overt acts of high treason
against the sovereign rights of Mr. Jefferson Hogg
may be mentioned. In 1812, as will fully be detailed
hereafter, Shelley visited Dublin on a political crusade,
without the necessary forms of obtaining permission
from his despotic master. This was evidently a pira-
tical proceeding, which, though unintelligible, could
not be silently passed over. With a sort of mild
severity, but still using the stereotyped phrases, he
says : — " He did not communicate his intentions to
me at the time. I never heard of his exploits in
Dublin until after their termination, and but little did
I learn at any period from himself. He seldom spoke
of them. If he ever referred to the subject at all, it
was briefly : and in truth he appeared to be heartily
ashamed of the whole proceeding " (ii. p. 75). When
we come to treat of this period, the last statement

FIRST LETTER TO LEIGH HUNT. 69

will be found to be contradicted by Shelley's own
reflections on the subject, as given in an unpublished
letter. But when at Dublin Shelley published two
elaborate pamphlets in furtherance of his political
scheme. On this additional proof of the young re-
former's want of confidence in his constitutional adviser,
the elderly Tory gentleman of 1858 thus descants : —

" Bysshe invariably sent me a copy of all his' other
works, whether long or short, in verse or in prose, as
soon as they were published, or, more commonly, as
soon as they were printed; but he never gave me,
either at the time of their appearance or subsequently,
his two Irish pamphlets. He never named them to
me, and I saw them for the first time a few months
ago" (ii. p. 76).

It will be found, quite apart from the private grounds
of complete separation between Shelley and his college
acquaintance about this period, that there were other
publications of the poet besides the Irish pamphlets
which were not sent to Mr. Hogg, probably because
the writer knew they could meet with little sympathy
from one the depth and shallowness of whose pre-
judices, both personal and political, the young en-
thusiast had by that time pretty well gauged.

Shelley's first letter to Leigh Hunt, as Editor of
The Examiner, is as follows : —

"University College, Oxford, March 2nd, 1811.

"Sir, — Permit me, although a stranger, to offer
my sincerest congratulations on the occasion of that
triumph so highly to be prized by men of liberality ;
permit me also to submit to your consideration, as one
of the most fearless enlighteners of the public mind at
the present time,, a scheme of mutual safety and mutual

7o PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

indemnification for men of public spirit and principle,
which, if carried into effect, would evidently be pro-
ductive of incalculable advantages. Of the scheme, the
following is an address to the public, the proposal for
a meeting, and it shall be modified according to your
judgment, if you will do me the honour to consider
the point.

" The ultimate intention of my aims is to induce a
meeting of such enlightened and unprejudiced members of
the community, whose independent principles expose them
to evils which might thus become alleviated ; and to form
a methodical society which should be organized so as to
resist the coalition of the enemies of liberty, which at
present renders any expression of opinion on matters of
policy dangerous to individuals. It has been for want
of societies of this nature that corruption has attained
the height at which we now behold it ; nor can any of
us bear in mind the very great influence which, some
years since, was gained by ' Illuminism/ without
considering that a society of equal extent might
establish national liberty on as firm a basis as that
which would have supported the visionary schemes of
a completely equalized community.

(C Although perfectly unacquainted with you pri-
vately, 1 address yon as a common friend to liberty,
thinking that, in cases of this urgency and impor-
tance, etiquette ought not to stand in the way of use-
fulness.

"My father is in Parliament, and on attaining
twenty-one I shall, in all probability, fill his vacant
seat. On account of the responsibility to which my
residence in this University subjects me, I, of course,
dare not publicly avow all I think ; but the time will
come when I hope that my every endeavour, insufficient

MR. BROWNING AND LETTERS OF SHELLEY. 71

as this may be, will be directed to the advancement of
liberty.

" I remain, Sir,

" Your most obedient servant,
" To Leigh Hunt." " P. B. SHELLEY.

The general resemblance of these two letters — one to
the Editor of The Statesman, and the other to the Editor
of The Examiner — is at once apparent, but it has not
previously been pointed out that two important passages
in each are identical. These, for the sake of comparison,
I have printed in italics. It will be remembered that
the circumstance which first created a suspicion of the
genuineness of the letters published in 1852 under the
superintendence of Mr. Browning, was the introduc-
tion into a letter purporting to have been written to
Godwin in 1819 of a passage published long subse-
quently in The Quarterly Review by Sir Francis
Palgrave. The passage in The Quarterly lingered in
the memory of Mr. Palgrave, the son of the writer,
but escaped the notice of Mr. Browning, although the
subject of the paper in which it is found, " The Fine
Arts in Florence/' might reasonably have attracted
the attention of Mr. Browning, who resided so long
in that city. The forgetfulness of one so deeply
read in Shelleyan literature is more surprising, as he
must have been long familiar with the letter to Leigh
Hunt, originally published by Mr. Lewes in 1841.
This identity should, of course, have been pointed out,
but in the opinion of the present writer it by no
means establishes the fact that the letter to the Editor
of The Statesman is a forgery. The object which
Shelley had in view was the same, but the position of
the two editors at the time was different. The

72 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

Government had succeeded in its prosecution of The
Statesman, but was defeated in that of The Examiner.
While condoling with the Editor of the former on his
imprisonment,, and congratulating the latter on his
triumph, Shelley proposes to each the formation, of
im Association which, among other things, would place
in greater security the freedom of the press. We have
here the outline of those " Proposals," which he pub-
lished a year later at Dublin in the second of his
Irish pamphlets. It is not at all improbable that on
the general subject of his letters, which were intended
rather as a circular to the Liberal papers than a special
communication to any, he would have repeated the
exact phrases which seemed best to express his ideas.
It does not appear that he received any reply to either
of the letters. I shall have presently to inquire who
in all probability was the person whom Shelley may
have addressed as Editor of The Statesman. The
account which Leigh Hunt gives of the letter addressed
to himself is so confused as to raise the presumption
that he did not receive it until some years later, when
Shelley personally sought his acquaintance, if indeed it
ever reached his hands at all. He never published the
letter himself. In 1841 it is found in the possession
of a stranger, who first prints it. Mr. Hogg, in [858,
not knowing that it had been published before, prints
it from a MS. copy in the handwriting of Mrs. Shelley,
who probably took it from the printed version of Mr.
Lewes, and finally it is given — most likely from the
same source — by Mr. Thornton Hunt, in the corre-
spondence of his father, with no further explanation
than this, that " among the letters of this period I
find the first from Shelley/' Leigh Hunt, in his
Autobiography, thus describes his earliest recollections

MIST A KEN RECOLLECTION OF LEIGH HUNT. 73

of Shelley : — " He was then a youth not come to his
full growth,, very gentlemanly, earnestly gazing at every
object that interested him, and quoting the Greek dra-
matists. Not long afterwards he married his first wife,
and he subsequently wrote to me while I was in prison,
as I have before mentioned/' — Leigh Hunt's Autobio-
graphy, edited by his eldest son. London, 1860, p. 255.
This is, of course, entirely wrong. The letter " be-
fore mentioned" was written in 1811, two years before
Leigh Hunt was in prison. There is no evidence to
show that Shelley was personally known to Leigh
Hunt until long after his marriage with his first wife ;
and Thornton Hunt expressly mentions that among
the literary and political visitors to his father when
imprisoned in 1813 and 1814, he has no recollection
of Shelley. Mr. Thornton Hunt supplies the omission
of his father, and tells us how, but not when, Leigh
Hunt and Percy Bysshe Shelley became acquainted.
Speaking of Mr. Hunter, the bookseller in St. Paul's
Churchyard — who it would seem was the second hus-
band of Mrs. Kent, the mother of Marian Kent,
Hunt's wife — he says : " It was indeed Mr. Rowland
Hunter who first brought Leigh Hunt and his most
valued friend personally together. Shelley had brought
a manuscript poem which proved by no means suited
to the publishing house in St. Paul's Churchyard;
but Mr. Hunter sent the young reformer to seek the
counsel of Leigh Hunt" (p. 255). The poem here
referred to may have been Queen Mab, which Shelley
privately printed in 1813 (though Hunt could scarcely
have forgotten a circumstance connecting that famous
poem with his first personal acquaintance with its
author) ; but the anecdote cannot by any possibility
refer to 1811.

74 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

We return now to the question, who was the Editor
of The Statesman newspaper, to whom Shelley is
alleged to have written on the 22nd of February, 181 1 ;
and what were the circumstances that provoked the
letter we have transcribed ?

The Statesman newspaper was the first political
speculation of Leigh Hunt and his elder brother
John. In a letter to his future wife, Marian Kent,
dated Gainsborough, Sunday, February 23rd, 1806,
Leigh Hunt says : " My brother John sent me a letter
last night, begging that I would come to town as soon
as possible, as the first number of The Statesman will
be published on the 26th/' . . . . " The Earl of Moira
has taken the paper under his immediate patronage,
and it will no doubt have a large circulation in the
Ministerial circles'" (Correspondence, vol. i. p. 1 7). " His
brother John," says Thornton Hunt, " with whom he
resided for a time, was a printer, and they had already
endeavoured to unite their forces. John had sought
to establish the paper already mentioned, The States-
man" . . . . " but it was relinquished apparently
through some want of perseverance in the capitalists.
Early in 1808 the brothers setup The Examiner" (Ibid.
vol. i. p. 42).

In the British Museum there is, unfortunately, no
copy of The Statesman. That noble library, which
with all its shortcomings is one of the finest in the
world, contains but a single number of a paper which,
if for nothing else, would be interesting from having
been established by Leigh Hunt, and contributed to
by Shelley. It is also memorable from the sufferings
of at least one of its proprietors. Shelley's letter to
the Editor, as given in Mr. Browning's suppressed
volume, naturally awakened in me the desire to know

' ' THE STA TESMAN, " A ND " THE DAY." 75

if in the paper itself there was any acknowledgment
of its receipt. Unfortunately, but one number, as I
have said, of The Statesman, and that of a date sub-
sequent to the period we are investigating, is preserved
in the British Museum. A few facts connected with
it may, however, be given from other sources.

The Statesman was established, as we have seen, in
1806, by Leigh Hunt and his brother John. It re-
mained in their hands until 1 808, when The Examiner
was started. In September, 1810, it was found, to his
cost, to be the property of one Daniel Lovell. The
character of the paper and the cause of its misfor-
tunes were very succinctly stated by Lord Folkestone
in a speech delivered by him in the House of Com-
mons on the 28th of March, 1811. " The Statesman/'
said he, " is a paper which has attracted notice by its
opposition to Ministers" (Cobbett's Political Regis-
ter, April 3rd, 1811, p. 818). An excuse was easily
found to set the machinery of the law against it, the
Editor having copied into his own journal two articles
which had appeared in contemporary newspapers.
One of these was from The Day* which severely com-
mented on the conduct of the military in Piccadilly
on the yth of April, 1810, at the arrest of Sir Francis
Burdett. No prosecution was instituted against the

* The Day, according to the late Master of the Rolls in
Ireland, Mr. Walsh, was established by James Farrell (the asso-
ciate of Eobert Emmett, but subsequently an eminent merchant in
London), Irish Johnson, Quin, and Peter Finnerty. " Among
other literary speculations," says the late Judge, " they established
a newspaper called The Day, which did not succeed. It was
proposed to improve its appearance by a new and expensive ar-
rangement and an improved title, which Farrell suggested should
be, ' Sufficient for The Day is the evil thereof.' The evil day was
then given up." — Ireland Sixty Years Ago, p. i8jj.

76 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

papers in which these articles originally appeared, the
whole vengeance of the Government being concen-
trated on the head of Mr. Lovell. Making no de-
fence except that the articles complained of were
copied in the usual way of selection, the Editor al-
lowed judgment to go by default. The excuse as-
sisted him little in a Court presided over by Lord
Ellenborough. Mr. Lovell was sentenced to an im-
prisonment which extended to the incredible length of
nearly five years, in consequence of his being unable
to procure the necessary bail. In the session of 1815
attention was drawn to his case in Parliament, and
he was at length released from his imprisonment,
which he had endured from the 29th of November,
1810.

This was a case that even in its inception might surely
have aroused all the generous indignation of Shelley,
but it will be remembered that on February 22nd,i8ii,
when the letter to theEditorof TheStatesman was written,
Mr. Lovell had been already- three months in prison.
It is difficult to understand the sudden interest taken
by Shelley in Mr. Lovell, supposing him to be the
person addressed as the Editor of The Statesman. It
is possible, however, that the individual addressed was
not Mr. Lovell at all, but a totally different person,
who either had been acting as editor since the incar-
ceration of Lovell in the previous November, or
who, from having published in The Statesman, as well
as in The Morning Chronicle, the so-called libel on
Lord Castlereagh, for which he too suffered a long
imprisonment, might have been considered by Shelley
as the editor of the former paper. This individual,
whose name the present work has been the first to
mention in connexion with that of Shelley, as we

"THE EXAMINER" AND MR. FINNERTY. 77

have briefly stated in our opening chapter, and in a
preceding note, was Mr. Peter Finnerty.

The eloquence of Curran, as we have said, has pre-
served the name of Peter Finnerty from oblivion ; but
few could imagine that perhaps a more enduring fame
has been reserved for it in the poetry of Shelley.
Such, however, is the fact, and such is the singular
story I have to relate.

The story of Mr. Peter Finnerty has been told and
the principles involved in his prosecution discussed by
no less skilful a hand than that of Leigh Hunt.
The future author of Rimini had not yet made the
acquaintance of Shelley, but as Editor of The Examiner
he courageously defended in the person of Mr. Fin-
nerty the conduct of a brother journalist, and upheld
a cause then very much imperilled, the liberty of the
press. Expecting to be an immediate sharer in Mr.
Finnerty's imprisonment, he was not deterred from
avowing a complete participation in the opinions for
the publication of which that gentleman was then
enduring punishment. This thorough knowledge of
the case of Peter Finnerty renders it peculiarly strange
that Leigh Hunt, of all people, should have been ig-
norant that his illustrious friend Shelley had sus-
tained as a poet the same man whom he himself had
defended as a journalist.

In The Examiner for February i7th, 1811, and
February 24th, 1 8 1 1, are two elaborate articles on the
prosecution of Peter Finnerty. Both have the usual
signature used by Leigh Hunt in his political writings.
The first article deals with the principles involved in
the case; the second, with the facts. The reader
will scarcely consider the latter tedious, giving as it
does the history of a man for whose benefit Percy

78 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

Bysshe Shelley wrote and published a volume of

verse : —

From The Examiner, February 24th, 1811.

:( The immediate cause of Mr. Finnerty's present
misfortune is well known to the public. He had
accompanied the expedition to Walcheren* at the
request of Sir Home Popham, in order to write an
account of it for publication, but was forced to return
home by an order to that effect by Lord Castlereagh,
the then Secretary of the War Department. Finding
himself deeply injured in profit, reputation, and health,
by a proceeding so directly calculated to put him to
loss and expense, to degrade his character, and to prey
upon his mind, he thought on his return of bringing
an action against his lordship, but was dissuaded from
it as of no use ; and therefore he vented his feelings
in a letter to Lord Castlereagh, which was published in
The Morning Chronicle [and The Statesman], and in
which he plainly accused the Viscount of an intention
to harass and destroy him, — reminding his lordship at
the same time of the tyrannous and horrible cruelties
practised upon the people of Ireland during the noble
lord's administration in that country. In consequence
of this letter, the ATTORNEY-GENERAL was directed to

* The Walcheren Expedition is best remembered at the present
day by the celebrated epigram, which has been published in a
variety of forms. The following is the original version, which I take
from The Morning Chronicle of Monday, Feb. 26th, 1810 :—

. Abstract and Brief Chronicle of the Documents and Evidence

concerning the Expedition to the Scheldt.
LOED CHATHAM, with his sword undrawn,
Kept waiting for SIR EICHAED STBACHAN ;
Sir Eichard, eager to be at 'em,
Kept waiting too — for whom ? — LOED CHATHAM

LEIGH HUNT ON PETER F1NNERTY. 79

file an information for libel against Mr. FINNERTY, and
the result, as everybody knows, has been the imprison-
ment of that gentleman — a heavy expense in addition
to his past losses, and a prospect of total ruin in his
removal to a distant gaol, far from the scenes and
occupations in which his pen had hitherto enabled him
to procure a subsistence.

" But these later facts disclose little. It is naturally
asked why the Secretary of State, who suffered and
even encouraged other persons to accompany the
expedition, should demand back Mr. FINNERTY alone ?
The Ministerialists easily satisfy themselves on the
occasion by saying ' his lordship must have had
excellent reasons / and The Morning Post, that epitome
of all that is accomplished and interesting, in order
to settle the matter for ever, informed the public that
Mr. FINNERTY was a suspicious person, with a very
treasonable cast of mind. As the Ministers and their
friends, however, have been long discovered not to
abound in ( excellent reasons ' for anything, and as
decent people, who look to facts and events, are
accustomed to believe the reverse of what the said
Post advances, the public waited to hear what Mr.
FINNERTY himself should produce on his trial in ex-
planation; and they were not surprised at discovering
that a long antipathy, common between my Lord
Castlereagh and his countrymen, had subsisted ever
since 1798 [1797] between his lordship and Mr.
FINNERTY, in consequence of the view which each took
of the other's character — the former regarding his
opponent as a bad subject, the latter considering his
lordship as an execrable Minister. Here then the
parties are at issue : the dispute resolves itself into a
question of political character, and by looking a little

8o PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

at their past actions — by observing which of the two
has most offended honest people, and, consequently,
•which of the two is most desirous of concealing the
wrong- he has done — we shall quickly see to which of
the two the general support belongs, and to which the
universal contempt.

" To begin with Mr. FINNERTY, who is the person
first accused. This gentleman,, it must be confessed in
the outset, has one deadly sin in the eye of a number
of persons — he is an Irishman, a native of that country
where to feel for the people about you is to be
accused of bloodthirstiness, and to differ with the
propriety of cheating them is to show that you are
not fit to be trusted. What will at once determine
the persons aforesaid to conclude him guilty beyond
question is, that he long ago expressed those feelings
warmly, and has been in the habit of so doing when-
ever an opportunity offered. It was in this way, like
the rest of his countrymen, that he acquired the par-
ticular notice of LORD CASTLEREAGH. In 1798 [1797],
Mr. FINNERTY, at that time twenty years of age, was
following his business as a printer in Dublin, where he
was concerned in a paper called The Press. This
and another print called The Northern Star were the
only newspapers, it seems, which ventured to notice
the house-burnings, the scourgings, the pickettings,
the half-hangings, and other dreadful inflictions
then practised against suspected people — atrocities
which, in proportion to their iniquity, it was the
natural wish of the perpetrators to keep from the
knowledge of the people of England. The destruction
of the latter paper was effected, and The Press alone
remained to repeat the groans of the country, and to
waft them over to the ear of this nation ; but not

FINNERTY THE FIRST PUBLISHER OF "THE PRESS." 8r

long. If to speak the truth is accounted a punishable
offence even in England, where it may be spoken
without shaking everybody's conscience, what must it
be accounted in Ireland, where every scourge was
reeking, and every dungeon echoed, with the crimes of
the rulers? Mr. FINNERTY was soon convicted of
libel, and the customary miscreants were not want-
ing to bring forward an accusation of treasonable
connexion. Another informer, whom the fellow
known by the appellation of Major Sirr (Town Major)
had been encouraging to make the same charge, con-
gratulated himself, as he afterwards declared in print,
on being 'relieved from the necessity of adding
another to the list of innocent men imprisoned through
his means/

" Mr. FINNERTY, after suffering a public punish-
ment which is inflicted on the lowest and vilest of our
species — the pillory — was committed to gaol, where he
had been but a short time when the superintendent
magistrate of Dublin, with a summary mode of pro-
ceeding perfectly astounding to all of us who are ac-
customed to regard our property as secure, took a party
of soldiers to The Press office, and ( destroyed/ says
the affidavit, ' not only the papers ready for publication,
but the types and other printing materials, amount-
ing in value to about 5OO// This man was a creature of
Lord Castlereagh, who had been understood for some
time to hold the Secretaryship under the Lord
Lieutenant as locum tenens for Mr. Pelham, from
which circumstance and his predominant influence in
affairs the ostensible Administration was usually called
Lord Castlereagh's Government. Be that as it may,
his lordship openly succeeded to office during Mr.
Finuerty's imprisonment ; and the latter, who wa&

8 3 PERCY B YSSHE SHELLEY.

confined in a gaol-room sixteen feet by nine, with four-
teen other persons, some of them convicted of capital
offences, and who was otherwise subjected to those
attendant circumstances of degradation and disgust
which render imprisonment trebly painful to decent
minds, wrote twice to his lordship on the subject,
stating the sickness and pain of mind which he suffered
in consequence of such treatment ; but no notice was
taken of the applications. Upon his liberation, finding
that he was in no way of procuring a subsistence, Mr.
FINNERTY waited upon the noble lord to request a
passport for leaving the country, but this too he was
refused, not without harshness and insult ; and at last
he found himself under the necessity of escaping to
England in the disguise of a sailor. Here, where
printing-presses are not to be cut up by a magistrate,
and where fifteen people are not confined at a time
in a room sixteen feet by nine, Mr. FINNERTY concluded
himself safe from persecution ; and for a time past his
pen had enabled him to live comfortably in the metro-
polis ; but he formed a strange estimate of the mag-
nanimity or conscious virtue of his enemies, if he
thought that the decided part which he continued to
manifest against their proceedings would induce them
to be regardless of his. To write warmly in news-
papers, to speak warmly at public meetings, and to
prepare the statements of aggrieved officers'* for the
public eye. were so many stimulants that kept alive
their memory and their dislike ; and the first time Mr.
FINNERTY subjected himself to the arm of power, he
felt it in all its weight. In addition to the vexation

* The " aggrieved officer" here alluded to by Leigh Hunt, was
the gallant Sir Home Popham, afterwards Admiral. The " state-

THE WALCHEREN EXPEDITION. 83

of being obliged to return from Walcheren, he had the
mortification of seeing his character become an object
of the lowest suspicion, in consequence of the sudden-
ness and apparent alarm of the order for that purpose ;
and people whose subserviency or whose temper inclines
them to believe anything on these occasions, were not
slow, as usual, to give the worst colour to what they
thought. Some of them, however, went beyond their
policy in so doing. A certain nobleman connected with
Lord Castlereagh was heard to say at a tavern in Middle-
hurst, in the presence of several officers, f I wish some
one would shoot that fellow out of the way at once/
Without pushing this speech to its extremity, and in-
sisting, as an Attorney-General might insist, that the
said nobleman being a malicious and murderous per-
son, and manifestly intending, conspiring, and devising
the death of the said PETER FINNERTY, did hope to
stir up some person or persons to take a loaded mus-
ket and discharge said musket in the face of said
Peter— it may be fairly asserted that such an ebullition
of impatience argued a malicious feeling against him,
and showed that the person who uttered it was prepared
to chagrin and annoy him in order to gratify those
who wished his injury. And what could have dictated
the order for his return but his personal obnoxious-
ness to men in office ? So confident were those who
invited him to Walcheren of the haTmlessness of their
object in so doing, that they even proposed to him to

ment" of his case prepared by Mr. Finnerty will probably be found
in the " Full and Correct Report of the Trial of Sir Home Popham,"
&c. London: 1807. "And maybe had of the different book-
sellers in the seaport towns." It is likely that Mi*. Finnerty was
also the Editor of this volume, which contains an elaborate preface
extending to xxxii pages.

G 2

84 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

inform the commander of the expedition, beforehand,
of his intention to write a mere military account of it
for the public — a proposition which he very properly
rejected as humiliating and servile. What then could
it be ? His friend Sir Home Popham was in the
confidence of the Ministers -* they would not willingly
let us suppose that they were conscious of defects in
the military system not altogether fitted for the in-
spection of a shrewd observer ; and if the expedition
terminated in deadly disgrace, it is hardly to be sup-
posed that they anticipated such determination. It is,

* The preceding note has shown the connexion between Mr.
Finnerty and Sir Home Popham. The treatment the former
received is the more remarkable from the high estimation in which
the gallant Admiral was held by many members of the govern-
ment. It is singular that the letter, about to be quoted, was
written by Sir R. Strachan, the most intimate friend of Sir Home
Popham and the godfather of one of his sons. Even in the
second generation a grandson of Sir Home Popham has " Strachan"
prefixed to a name of great historic interest, connected both with
Ireland and England in the reign of Elizabeth. The following
is the letter : —

" His Majesty's Ship Venerable, Downs, July 26, 1809.

" MEM. — It is my directions that the captains and commanders
of his Majesty's ships and vessels under my command do report
whether there is a person or gentleman of the name of Peter
Finnerty on board any of his Majesty's ships, and in what capa-
city, and if he is, to send him here. It is my directions that the
agents of transports make inquiry, and report the same.

" (Signed) R. STKACHAN.

" To the respective captains, &c. &c."

Case of Peter Finnerty. London: 1811, p. 7.

If a letter of this description had been addressed during the
Crimean war " to the respective captains" before Sebastopol,
referring to a " person or gentleman" named William Russell,
we know what would have been the result. The injury to Mr.

PETER FINNERTY AND LORD CA8TLEREAGH. 85

on the contrary, certain that they anticipated a signal
triumph ; that they expected the Dutch, on being put
to fire and sword, to fall affectionately into their arms,
and that my LORD CHATHAM intended to cover himself
with glory with as much ease and leisurely gaping as
he would put on his night-cap. But, says The Post,
Mr. FINNERTY had been suspected in Ireland of
treasonable connexion. Then, says common sense,
why was not the business investigated, when he him-
self repeatedly requested an investigation of this very
LORD CASTLE RE AGH in consequence of the language
held by his lordship against him ? But no ; the truth
is that he had annoyed the Irish Government ; in other
words, he had been a libeller — a character which, when
regarded with reference to the definition lately given
of libel, and to the times and the country in which he
wrote, the first impulse of honest men is, I verily
believe, to look upon with respect. Had he written
in liquor of a different colour from ink — had he
practised the scourge against which he exclaimed —
his usage might have been very different ; for the
public will not easily forget that the same Govern
ment which recalled from an expedition a man whc
had proved himself the foe of cruelty and oppression

Finnerty was really too serious to admit of jocularity, yet the
following squib or travesty of the letter which I have seen some-
where was absolutely written : —

"Sin HOME POPHAM AND ME. FINNERTY.
Sir E. StracJian to the Respective Captains.

Should Peter Finnerty be found

On board the Fleet to Walcheren bound,

You're ordered, sir, to stop him —
Too dangerous to be let to roam ;
Arrest the rogue , and pop kirn home,

In spite of Sir Home Popham !"

86 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

sent out with an expedition, in a situation of emolu-
ment and honour, a man who had been convicted upon
trial of both ; no less a man — no less a man, did I
say ? no less a monster — than Governor Picton. The
reader ought to rememher that in consequence of the
anxieties which Mr. FINNERTY underwent on this
occasion, he was seized with a severe illness which
affected his mind; he ought to be told, also, that when
the defendant applied to the prosecutor's attorney to
be allowed a postponement of the trial on account of
the absence and distance of several persons whose
evidence he thought necessary on the occasion, he re-
ceived a peremptory refusal ; and, in fine, that no
littleness and pertinacity of annoyance might be want-
ing to the last stage of the business, he ought to be
informed that when another dangerous illness seized
Mr. FINNERTY, and the trial was compelled to be post-
poned, a person who is understood to be a confidential
friend of Lord Castlereagh called upon the defendant's
attorney, and impatient, it should seem, at the delay,
loaded the sick man with opprobrium.

" Of the noble lord, who has the honour of being
better known than his antagonist, the reader may not
desire to hear much further. But it is right that he
should call to mind what Mr. FINNERTY wished to
produce against his lordship in evidence of the truth ;
for let some judges contradict others as much as they
please in defining libel, no generous and just people
will ever endure to confound truth with falsehood
in any way, much less in determining between the
merits of two parties, one of whom is anxious to prove,
and the other to punish only. With his lordship's
private character, as far as it is distinguished, or can
be, from his public one, we have nothing to do. I

TORTURES INFLICTED IN DUBLIN. 87

know that people differ with respect to the indissolubility
of the two ; and whatever I may think myself on the
matter, as far at least as regards principle, I cannot
but remember that Sir Robert Walpole was an affec-
tionate husband, and that King Charles I. was as good
a master to his household as he was a bad one to his
country. Considering, therefore, the character of his
lordship in a light altogether public, it is impossible
to help a feeling of the ludicrous in hearing him com-
plain of an intention to bring it into contempt —
' public hatred and contempt ' is the phrase ; probably
the indictment would have been more correct had it
said ' hatred in Ireland/ and ' contempt in England.'*
What makes the thing still more singular is, that he
should think such prosecutions as these a likely mode
of diminishing either. To look at England alone —
has his lordship forgotten two simple facts that are
quite sufficient for all reasonable detestation of his public
conduct : — ist, his attempt to barter and trick away
a seat in the House of Commons, in flagrant violation

* In The Morning Chronicle, February nth, 1811, is the fol-
lowing- epigram : —

To LORD CASTLEEEAGH.

On some expressions respecting him in Mr. WTiitbread's Speech,
as reported in The Chronicle of 2,6th ult.

" Quid immoventes hospites vexas, canis,
Ignarus adversum lupus ?" — HORACE.
Wherefore, dread peer, thy heaviest vengeance shed
On luckless FINNERTY'S offending head ?
Or at St. Stephen's, in sarcastic tone,
Why vent thy anger on Burdett alone ? —
A nobler, worthier foe is now in view,
For WHITBREAD e'en proclaims thee cruel too ;
He calls in doubtful phrase, yet half unwilling,
Thy candour merciless, thy very kindness killing.

88 PERC Y B YSSHE SHELLS Y.

of his oaths and public faith ; and 2nd, his concern
in planning and prosecuting the infamous expedition
above mentioned — an expedition which wanted no ex-
treme of negligence, folly, and misfortune to render it
useless to our friends, ridiculous to our enemies, and
agonizing to ourselves ? Yet these are nothing to the
offences of which he is accused in Ireland. Mr.
FINXERTY would have produced in court, had he been
suffered, above fifty affidavits charging his lordship
with the knowledge and sanction of the tortures
notoriously inflicted upon Irishmen. One of them,
as the public have seen, stated that in the year 1798,
floggings, half-hangings, &c., were practised in Dublin,
close to the Castle gate, where the Secretary of State's
office was, and that Lord Castlereagh must have heard
the cries; another, that in the same year a Mr.
Dixon saw three persons whipped and tortured without
a trial ; a third, from a Mr. Hughes, that he was seen
by Lord Castlereagh after suffering the torture which
had rendered his back raw and his shirt a mass of
gore ; and a fourth, that under his lordship's govern-
ment a father and son had been tortured side by side.
Had these four affidavits been allowed a hearing, there
would still have remained above six-and-forty ; so that
we have no alternative but to believe either that LORD
CASTLEREAGH was the wicked Minister he is described
to have been, or that upwards of fifty persons have
voluntarily come forward to perjure themselves in a
court of justice, and subject themselves to the most
degrading penalties for the mere sake of obliging Mr.
FINNERTY. It is true, we are ignorant of the character
of these persons, but then we are not ignorant of my
Lord Castlereagh's. If he could prove them guilty of
perjury, why, as Mr. FINNERTY asked, did he not come

MR. FINNERTY ENTITLED TO SYMPATHY. 89

forward and do so, instead of choosing a mode of trial
which stopped the mouth of proof ? ' If he had pro-
ceeded against me by information/ said Mr. FINNERTY,
1 he might have shown my statement was false ; if he
had proceeded by action, I might have sworn it
was true ; but no : he chooses to proceed criminally,
where neither can take place, and this he calls a
vindication of his character/ In fact, setting aside
Mr. FINNERTY'S case altogether, and all the affidavits
that might rise up against his lordship from London-
derry to Cork, it is quite manifest that till LORD
CASTLEREAGH can disprove the fact of his having
undertaken to market for a seat in Parliament, he
has no particular character to lose, and it is as
ridiculous for him to bluster on the subject as it
would be for a wooden leg to complain of a pain.
He may have something he chooses to call a cha-
racter, and may truly be afraid of having it touched ;
in like manner, a person with a false nose may affect
to sneeze at taking snuff, and will be equally alarmed
at the approach of a fist — not for fear that the thing
itself should be hurt, but that the disguise should be
pulled off.

" Convinced, however, as any humane and indepen-
dent mind must be of the ill-treatment Mr. FINNERTY
has undergone, and of the brightness of contrast with
which he comes from the side of LORD CASTLEREAGH,
it does not appear that in his latter appearance in
court he had to complain of the interruption from the
Bench. There seemed to be two distinct features in
his case — the one general, arising from the ground upon
which his letter was declared libel ; the other relative,
arising from contingencies which, in fact, he created
against himself. The former, which declares that truth

9o PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

is libel, and even aggravated libel, meets with the
unqualified and hearty indignation of all Englishmen
who value freedom of speech and of person ; the latter,
while it excites their regret, does not allow them
wholly to exculpate Mr. FINNERTY when rigidly judged.
I allude to the hope under which he was induced, in
the first instance, to let judgment go by default,
thereby acknowledging in word, if not in deed, that he
had committed an offence worthy of punishment. I
know, as he afterwards declared, that such was not his
real opinion ; and I believe that he thought he was jus-
tified in availing himself of what he imagined would di-
minish the punishment, but on both these very accounts
the proceeding was unworthy of him. He felt that he
had spoken the truth, and he should have felt also
that it could do no honour and no good to that truth
to submit even to the smallest approaches towards a
double dealing, fit only for his and truth's opposers.
There are times, places, and classes of people in which
those approaches are considered as nothing, particularly
if the end of them, as they say, is good and patriotic ;
but there are other persons equally patriotic on this
subject who consider them as worse than useless, and are
inclined on that account, and on no other, either of
pride or affectation, to hold themselves aloof from those
who practise them. Mr. FINNERTY has tried both;
and his spirit, in rising above the little clogs and
puddles of expediency, and proving itself equal to the
most elevated sentiments, has gratified beyond measure
the truest friend to reform.

' Scarce vanish'd out of sight,
He buoys up instant and returns to light/

The original cause for which this gentleman has ex-
posed himself to imprisonment and poverty must ever

LETTER IN THE STATE PAPER OFFICE. 91

awaken but one feeling in the minds of freemen ; and
it rejoices us to see that the spirit he has evinced has
awakened as much sympathy in Englishmen as his
long suffering has endeared him to the Irish, and his
display of talent has raised him in the estimation of
everybody/'

On Thursday, February ;th, 181 i, Mr. Finnerty was
brought up for judgment. He was sentenced to be
imprisoned in the gaol of Lincoln for eighteen months,
and at the expiration of that period to give security
for his good behaviour for five years, himself in 5OO/.,
and two sureties in 2$ol. each.

To conclude this portion of Mr. Finnerty's history,
the following additional facts, partly derived from
State Papers in the Record Office, may be given. The
arrival of Mr. Finnerty at Lincoln Gaol to commence
the long period of his imprisonment, is described at
considerable length in The Examiner of March 3rd,
1811, the article being taken from the Stamford News.
One passage may be quoted.

" We are happy to say that Mr. Finnerty has met
with good friends here ; some of the most wealthy and
most respectable gentryhave intimated that he may com-
mand any alleviation of his troubles they can furnish."

There is a curious letter in the State Paper Office
which has not been printed, confirmatory of the fore-
going allusion to the sympathy felt for Mr. Finnerty
by respectable inhabitants of Lincoln. The letter has
no address, but as the writer signs himself "D. P. M."
which may mean Deputy Post Master, it may have been
forwarded to Mr. Francis Freeling, afterwards Sir
Francis, the Secretary of the Post Office, of whom and to
whom there are numerous letters in the Record Office.

92 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

" Domestic, Geo. III., 1812. No. 239.

" Lincoln, August ipth, 1812.

« Sir, — I am much obliged to you for the Gazettes,
and many loyal inhabitants of this place were gratified
with a perusal of them ; but I am sorry to confess
that the disloyal party have very much increased here :
Mr. Drakard and Mr. Finnerty are the cause. The
latter I consider to be a dangerous character, and yet,
strange to tell, his conduct is admired by many
respectable people.

" I am, sir, your obliged servant,

" JOHN DRURY, D.P.M."

If the signature " D. P. M." means Divisional Police
Magistrate, the letter must have been addressed to one
of the Under-Secretaries of State, Mr. Ryder or Mr.
Becket.

Before Mr. Finnerty's removal from King^s Bench
Prison, London, he had been visited by the Hon.
Leicester Stanhope. This act of courtesy brought
down upon that gentleman the abuse of a scurrilous
magazine called The Satirist, or Monthly Meteor, of
which thirteen volumes were published — 1808 to 1813.
Mr. Stanhope condescended to notice this attack, in
which the editor, a person of the name of G. Manners,
affected to be indignant that " a son of that univer-
sally respected nobleman, Lord Harrington, should
become the bearer of a message from Mr. Finnerty/''
In his letter, the Hon. Leicester Stanhope calls Mr.
Finnerty " a high-minded and honourable man." —
Satirist, vol. ii. pp. 408, 504.

In Lincoln, as we have seen, the same feeling was
shown to Mr. Finnerty by persons of position outside
the prison ; but inside the case was very different. He

MR. FINNERTTS PETITION. 93

was treated with considerable harshness, put into an
unhealthy room, and deprived of the privilege of
taking exercise in the place usually assigned for
prisoners not convicted of felony. Charges of mis-
conduct were brought against him by the officials of
the gaol, and a very curious investigation took place
before the visiting magistrates, the whole of which is
given in a folio MS. in the Record Office, of con-
siderable length : " Domestic, Geo. III., No. 226."
The matter was also brought before Parliament several
times. Mr. Finnerty succeeded in obtaining a less
rigorous treatment, and the remainder of his imprison-
ment passed quietly. In the same collection of State
Papers is the original petition to the Prince Regent,
presented by Mr. Finnerty through the hands and by
the advice of Mr.
Whitbread. It
contains the re-
markable signa-
ture of Mr. Fin-
nerty, May 23rd,
1811, of which the above is a tracing. The
petition is substantially the same presented to Parlia-
ment about the same period.

Mr. Finnerty's sentence expired on the 7th of
August, 1812, as mentioned in the following extract
from The Dublin Weekly Messenger, August 22nd, 1812,
the same journal, it will be recollected, which contains
the sin gular allusion to Shelley's poem : —

<( Our countrymen will hear with pleasure that Mr.
Finnerty has been liberated from confinement, from
the incarceration which for eighteen months he had
suffered in the cause of truth, justice, and his country.
On Friday the 7th instant, a public dinner to celebrate

94 PERC Y B YSSHE SHELLEY.

his liberation was given at Lincoln, to which Mr.
Finnerty was invited . George Langton, Esq., a patriot
and a magistrate, took the chair."

In The Morning Chronicle, August i8th, 1812, there
is a fuller account of this dinner, which took place at
the Reindeer Inn, Lincoln. " Mr. Finnerty addressed
the meeting at considerable length, and expressed his
gratitude for the kindness and attention with which
he had been favoured."

The Mr. Drakard referred to in the letter of Mr.
Drury in the Record Office, was the proprietor and
editor of The Stamford News. In 1822 he published
a very excellent History of Stamford. He was
prosecuted in j8i i for printing in The Stamford News
an article on military punishment. Though ably
defended by Brougham, he was sentenced on March
1 3th, 181 1, to precisely the same punishment as Mr.
Finnerty, whose imprisonment he shared. The trial
is reported in the following rare 4to tract. " Report
of the Proceedings on an Information filed by His
Majesty 's Attorney-General against John Drakard,
Proprietor of The Stamford News, for publishing in
that Paper an Article on Military Punishment. STAM-
FORD : printed and sold by J. Drakard; and sold by
Crosby and Co., Stationers' Court, London." It may
be interesting to note here that " Crosby and Co.,
Stationers' Court, London," were the publishers of
Shelley's poem which will presently be described, and
which appeared two days before the conviction of Mr.
Drakard. *

* In January, 1813, Mr. Drakard started in London Dra-
hard's Paper. A Weekly Political and Literary Journal.
In January, 1814, it changed its name to The Champion, and
became eventually the property of John Thelwall.

CHAPTER V.

*T*HE sympathy awakened by Mr. Finnerty's spirit
and ability, as shown by the article from The
Examiner quoted in our last chapter, was not confined
to Englishmen. It was felt throughout the three
kingdoms, and various local bodies were formed in the
chief towns of England, Scotland, and Ireland to
support the movement commenced by Sir Francis
Burdett* at the Crown and Anchor Tavern, London,
on the soth of February, 1811, for the purpose of
sustaining Mr. Finnerty in prison.

These manifestations of public feeling do not ap-
pear very remarkable in the larger towns, where there
is always a considerable amount of political excitement
ready at any moment to be aroused. But one would
scarcely expect to find that the earliest voice of
sympathy and co-operation the London movement to

* Sir Francis Burdett came in, of course, for a good deal of
abuse in Tory journals for the part he took in this movement.
Alluding to this, and to his duel with Mr. Paull, arising out of the
Westminster election, the following epigram is to be found in one
of the publications of the day : —

EPIGBAM
ON PETER FINNERTY'S SUBSCRIPTION.

Knights of the Post, of old, strove all
By robbing Peter to pay Paul ;
Sir Francis Burdett nicks it neater —
He pistols Paul and pensions Peter !

The Satirist, or Monthly Meteor, vol. viii. p. 335.

96 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

sustain Mr. Finnerty received, should come from the
tranquil city of Oxford and its learned University.
The meeting at the Crown and Anchor Tavern, in the
Strand, took place on Wednesday, February 2Oth, 181 1 .
In the next ensuing publication of The Oxford Uni-
versity and City Herald, on Saturday, February 23 rd,
only three days after, appears the following article, to
which we would draw the reader's special attention, in
connexion with the alleged letter of Shelley to the
Editor of The Statesman, dated the 22nd of February—
the day preceding. The tone, and occasionally the
language, of these two documents are so similar,
particularly when read in the light of a fact that will
subsequently be mentioned, that I have no difficulty
in believing that Shelley either wrote the article in
The Oxford Herald himself, or saw it in proof, the day
before the paper was published — the same day on
which he addressed the " Editor of The Statesman'9
whom he must have believed to be Mr. Finnerty.
Here is the article which appeared in The Oxford
University and City Herald, February 23rd, 18 IL : —

" We are happy to find that the case of Mr. Fin-
nerty has made a strong impression on the public
mind, and that, in consequence, the frequent informa-
tions which have been lately filed by the Attorney-
General will become the subject of parliamentary in-
quiry. Of Mr. Finnerty in his private capacity we
know nothing ;* but as Englishmen, and living tinder
what has always been esteemed and what we hope

* The language -of Shelley's letters "to the Editor of The
Statesman " and " The Editor of The Examiner " is almost the
same : — " Although perfectly unacquainted with you privately, I
address you as a common friend to liberty," &c.

"THE OXFORD HERALD" ON FINNERTY. 97

will always remain a free constitution, we are bound
to respect the LIBERTY OF THE PRESS, as far as it in-
volves a free discussion on the merits of public men,
and the probable consequence of public measures ; for
these are a public concern, are supported and carried
on by the public purse, and become the fair objects
of public praise or censure ; and our readers need not
be informed that a peculiar hardship attends the case
of informations filed ex-officio, as a heavy punishment
necessarily precedes the verdict ; for the individual
against whom the information is filed may be perfectly
innocent, and, though acquitted, may be previously
ruined by the expenses of a trial to which he is brought
by the will of the Attorney- General, and without the
case being submitted to a grand jury. For these
reasons we have just opened a subscription at THE
HERALD OFFICE in favour of Mr. Finnerty — a measure
which will, without doubt, suJbject us to the invectives
of sycophants and flatterers, pensioners and expectants ;
a tribe of gentry, however, whom we heartily despise,
and will always endeavour to expose/'

The Oxford Herald was not slow in making its
arrangements for the collection of the subscription
thus so warmly encouraged. In the same number the
following announcement is conspicuously given : —

" LIBERTY OF THE PRESS. — The friends to the
Liberty of the Press are informed, that a subscription
in behalf of Mr. Finnerty is opened at the office of
The Oxford Herald.

" Subscriptions already received : Proprietors of The
Oxford Her aid } 5/. 55. ; Mr. Bird, i/. is. ; Mr. Hobbs,
il. is."

In the next number of The Oxford Herald, Saturday,
H

98 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

March 2nd, 1811, the same announcement appears, and
is followed by the same list of subscribers, with the addi-
tion of one name indeed — a name that will, we think,
be of some interest to our readers — namely, that of

"MR. P. B. SHELLEY, il. is. od."

The circumstance that Shelley's name is not given
in the first list strengthens the alternative which I
have suggested above, that he was not himself the
writer of the article on Finnerty's case published on
the 23rd of February, but that he saw it in proof
when the rest of the paper was set up, and when it
was too late to have his name inserted as a subscriber
in that week's impression.

There are abundant reasons for believing that
Shelley must have been a constant visitor at this time
to the printing-office of John Munday, who was, we
have little doubt, the proprietor as well as the printer
of The Oxford Herald. Without attaching too much
importance to the fact that one of the poems which I
have ventured to suggest as having probably been
written by Shelley, appeared in the same paper with
the article on Finnerty, there is conclusive proof that
between February the 9th and March the pth, 1811,
Shelley, being then at Oxford, was engaged in printing
two works — one of them of fatal omen to him, the
tract entitled The Necessity of Atheism ; and the other
the missing and hitherto unknown poem, the title and
story of which I have been the first to discover and to
trace.

A strong corroboration of the view I am maintain-
ing, that Shelley had a very early acquaintance with
the articles, particularly on this subject of the Liberty
of the Press, as they appeared in The Oxford Herald, is

SHELLEY'S SUBSCRIPTION TO THE FINNERTY FUND. 99

found in the fact that in the number for March 2nd,
181 1, which contains his own name as a subscriber to the
Finnerty Fund, there is a leading article on the triumph
of The Examiner in the special prosecution directed
against it. Our readers will remember that it was
on this very day, March 2nd, 18 n, Shelley wrote
his first letter to Leigh Hunt, inspired probably by
the following remarks, as he had been the week before
by those on Finnerty : —

" The acquittal of the proprietors of The Examiner"
says The Oxford Herald, " for a libel, on a criminal
information filed ex-officio by the Attorney-General,
gives us extreme pleasure, as we conceive it will prove
a salutary check to the mode of proceeding which of
late has been so frequently adopted, and which, if
persevered in, will reduce the press to a state of tame-
ness and servility, and prevent that open and free
discussion which leads to the repeal of obnoxious laws,
and the general advantage and comfort of society/'

The article does not end here, but the passage
quoted is sufficient for our purpose. It will remind
the reader as much of the letter to the supposed or
real " Editor of The Statesman," of the 22nd of Feb-
ruary, 1811, as of that to Leigh Hunt on the 2nd of
March.

The story of the publication, or at least the intended
publication, of the unfortunate tract, The Necessity of
Atheism, though perhaps in chronological order it
should now be given, may be more conveniently de-
ferred until we treat of the termination of Shelley's
academical career at Oxford — a termination rather vio-
lently produced by the tract itself.

The name of Peter Finnerty, sentenced on the 7th
H 2

roo

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

af February, 1811, first appears in The Oxford Herald
of the 23rd of February. Shelley's subscription to the
fund for his benefit is acknowledged in the number for
March 2nd, 181 1; and in the next number, for March 9th,
[8 1 1, we find the following remarkable advertisement,
filling a space of about three inches, and printed in
the most conspicuous part of the paper, at the head of
the first column : —

Just published, Price Two Shillings,
A POETICAL ESSAY

ON THE

Existing State of Things.

AND FAMINE AT HER BIDDING WASTED WIDE
THE WRETCHED LAND, TILL IN THE PUBLIC WAT,
PROMISCUOUS WHERE THE DEAD AND DYING LAY,
DOGS FED ON HUMAN BONES IN THE OPEN LIGHT OF DAY.

Curse ofKehama.

BY A

GENTLEMAN of the University of Oxford.
For assisting to maintain in Prison

MR. PETER FINNERTY,

IMPRISONED FOR A LIBEL.

LONDON : SOLD BY B. CROSBY AND Co.,

AND ALL OTHER BOOKSELLERS.

1811.

This poem was written and published by Percy
Bysshe Shelley. In the absence of direct proof, ft is
impossible to say with absolute certainty what the
precise character of the poem was. A pretty exact

POETICAL ESS A Y ON EXISTING STATE OF THINGS. 101

inference, however, may be drawn from its title, and
from an allusion here and there in Shelley's letters
which may possibly refer to it. There can be very
little doubt that the Poetical Essay on the Existing
State of Things was a satire dealing with the condition
of Ireland, particularly in reference to the miseries of
the late rebellion, and the persistent misgovernment
of that country. The quotation from Southey points
to this. The powerful picture of famine there drawn,
and the phrase " the wretched land," were in those
days unhappily too applicable to Ireland. The lines
are from the sixth part of The Curse of Kehama, en-
titled " The Enchantress," and will be found at page
588, second column of the one- volume edition of
Southey's Poems. This quotation puts an end to one
of Mr. Hogg's most apocryphal stories. He tells us
that nearly a year after this period, when Shelley was
living at Keswick, during one of his visits to Greta
Hall, the residence of Southey, the elder poet, taking
an unfair advantage of his opportunity, locked the
door of his study on his young visitor, and mercilessly
read him to sleep from the MS. pages of The Curse oj
Kehama — a poem from which, in its published form,
Shelley had printed a quotation twelve months before.
The egotistical buffoonery which Mr. Hogg mistook
for humour, almost more than its want of reliability,
has been the ruin of his book. This farcical tendency
of Mr. Hogg's mind seems to have shown itself at a
very early period, and, if we may judge by the fol-
lowing character of him, was as little relished by his
friends then as by his readers now. Mr. Thornton
Hunt, in an article on Shelley in the Atlantic Monthly
(February, 1863), thus describes the future unsuccessful
biographer of the poet : —

I02 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

" His school-friend Hogg was a gentleman of inde-
pendent property. Shelley detected the sensitiveness
of his nature,, and I know that the man has been
capable of truly generous conduct. How is it then
that he has written such utterly unintelligible stuff,
and has descended to such evasions as to insert [qy.
invert ?*] initials, lest people should detect amongst
Shelley's correspondents a most admirable friend,
who happened, it is supposed, to be of plebeian origin ?
Mr. Thomas Jefferson Hogg, I surmise, was conscious
somewhat early in life that his better qualities were
not fully appreciated ; and his love of ease, his wit,
his perception of the ludicrous made him take refuge
in cynicism until he learned almost to forget the origin
of the real meaning of the things he talked about.
His account of Shelley is like a figure seen through
fantastically distorting panes of glass/''

Shelley was at home during the Christmas vacation
of 1810. His first letter to Hogg was written there,
and is dated " Field Place, December 2oth, 1810." He
mentions that his father had called upon " S." — that
is, Stockdale — in London,, and we are prepared for the
quarrel that soon after took place between Shelley and
the publisher of St. Irvyne. Towards the end of
the letter is the following curious passage : — " I am
composing a satirical poem. I shall print it at Ox-
ford, unless I find, on visiting him, that R. [qy.

* This must refer to the letters addressed to Mr. Thomas Hook-
ham, ot New Bond Street, both by Shelley and Harriet, as given
in Hogg's Life, vol. ii. pp. 206-211. Ihe initials are not "in-
serted," but inverted, " H. T." being invariably used for " T. H."
But might not this have been done to prevent careless readers from
confounding letters to " Thomas Hookham " with those addressed
to " Thomas Hogg ?"

PROBABLE CHARACTER OF THE POEM. 103

Robinson ?] is ripe for printing whatever will sell. In
case of that, he is my man." — Hogg, vol. i. p. 143.

We have heard, and indeed we know, that " Shelley
was quick to conceive, and not less quick to execute ;"
but with all this rapidity of conception and facility of
execution it would almost have been impossible for
him to have written, printed, and published a poem
which 'from its price must have been at least as large
as Margaret Nicholson, in one fortnight. As I have
already pointed out, that was exactly the time that
elapsed from the first mention of Mr. Peter Finnerty's
name in The Oxford Herald, until a poem for his
benefit was announced in that paper as " just pub-
lished." It is plain that Shelley must have had some
poem ready, the title of which he had not decided on,
when his attention was drawn to this case of injustice,
as he conceived it to be, when it occurred to him to
connect his work with the charitable movement to
sustain Finnerty thus set on foot. The Poetical Essay
on the Existing State of Things I believe to be the
" satirical poem " above referred to. Whether it was
submitted to " Mr. R.," of Paternoster Row, or not is
uncertain ; but there is no improbability in supposing
that it was. The second letter in Mr. Browning's
suppressed volume is addressed to " J. H. Graham,
Esq./'* at whose house, 18, Sackville Street, Piccadilly,
as we know from Hogg's book (vol. i. pp. 388, 389,
417), Shelley occasionally stopped, and where he di-
rects his friend's letters to himself should be addressed.
This letter to Graham, if it be genuine, shows that

* Mr. Graham is represented in Mr. Hogg's book as being the
" factotum " of Mr. Shelley senior, the poet's father. — Life, vol. i.
p. 307.

J04 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

Shelley was in the habit of sending him from Oxford
(for the letter is dated there — " University College,
February 26th, 1811 ") his poetical pieces according
as they were written, perhaps to have them offered for
publication to some bookseller. The date admits the
possibility that the allusion may have referred to the
Poetical Essay. Mr. Graham may have suggested
that it was too slight for separate publication, to which
Shelley replies : " What I sent you last is not enough
for a pamphlet, I grant you, but I cannot help it. A
subject soon exhausts itself with me. You must get
some of your volume friends to spin the text for
you."*

Should the " satirical poem " referred to by Shelley
in his letter of the loth December, 1810, have been
the Poetical Essay, he was right for once in his esti-
mate of what was likely to " sell." In a document
authenticated by himself, as we have seen, it is said to
have produced the sum of ioo/. for the object it was
published to sustain. This alone is such a phenomenon
in the pecuniary results of Shelley's writings during
his lifetime, that it intensifies our desire to recover a
copy. No doubt it was bought, not for the sake of
the verse, but for the sake of the cause. Yet when we-
are told that the Epipsychidion "fell dead from the
press — not a copy of it was sold — not a single review
noticed it " (Medwin, vol. ii. p. 76), and that the
Poetical Essay on the Existing State of Things pro-
duced a profit of ioo/., we have only an additional

* It is curious that Mr. Hogg makes no allusion to these poems
sent up to London for the approval of Mr. Graham. This is an
additional corroboration of the fact that Mr. Hogg did not
possess the entire confidence of Shelley.

THE ' ' ESSA Y ON LO VE. n 105

proof of the seemingly capricious fate that so often
befalls poems as well as individuals.

The advertisement of the Poetical Essay in The Ox-
ford Herald of March 2nd, 181 i, though the earliest and
the most important, was not the only one which an-
nounced the publication of a work that would now be
read with an amount of interest and curiosity little
anticipated by the author or the public whom he ad-
dressed. In point of fact, it happens to have been the
last which I discovered in my researches into this most
curious subject. Before it occurred to me to inquire for
some Oxford paper of the period, and of course before
I had seen The Oxford Herald, I had worked my way
into a knowledge of the title of the poem. The
evidence of the fact that Shelley had published
some poem, the name of which is not given, in con-
nexion with the case of Mr. Finnerty, is contained, as
we have seen, in a newspaper, a copy of which Shelley
sent to Godwin from Dublin, the receipt of which is
acknowledged by Godwin in his letter to Shelley,
March I4th, 1812 (Hogg, vol. ii. p. 96). Shelley
himself makes no allusion to the Poetical Essay in his
letters to Godwin, unless indeed he may have referred
to it in the list of the "publications of my early
youth " under the altered title of the " Essay on Love/'
" a little poem/' which he gave to him in his letter from
" Keswick, January i6th, 1812 " (Hogg, vol. ii. p. 62).
The word " Essay " gives great probability to this
supposition ; but whether this be true or not, I found
the Poetical Essay on the Existing State of Things
advertised in The Morning Chronicle of March I5th and
March 2ist, and in The Times of April joth and
April nth, 1811. It was thus more than a month
before the world, by which time, it may be presumed,

J06 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

the whole impression was bought up, as we hear no
more about it except the allusion in The Dublin Weekly
Messenger of Saturday, March 7th, 1812, which states
that a poem for the benefit of Mr. Finnerty had been
published by Percy Bysshe Shelley, and that the sum
of nearly ioo/. produced by the sale of that poem had
been presented to Mr. Finnerty by the author. This
article, authenticated by Shelley himself as having been
forwarded by him to Godwin, will be given in due
course. We wish again to impress the fact on the
attention of our readers that Mr. Finnerty was still in
prison when this act of liberality on the part of the
young poet was publicly announced ; that he was in
communication with the paper in which it appeared ;
and that it is utterly impossible such a statement could
have passed uncontradicted if it were not true.

Reserving a further consideration of the Poetical
Essay on the Existing State of Things until we have to
speak of Shelley's first visit to Dublin in 1812, we
resume our account of his remaining literary efforts
while at Oxford.*

* The earliest London advertisement of the poem that I have
found is in The Courier, March nth, 1811, two days after it
was announced in The Oxford Herald. The advertisement is
repeated in The Courier, March ijth, 1811.

CHAPTER VI.

T ITTLE dreaming that Shelley had printed and
published a poem after the appearance of the
Posthumous Fragments of Margaret Nicholson, and
before the printing of The Necessity of Atheism, Mr.
Hogg thus proceeds in his history of the intellectual
progress of his friend : —

" The operation of Peg Nicholson was bland and
innoxious : the next work that Shelley printed was
highly deleterious, and was destined to shed a baneful
influence over his future progress" (vol. i. p. 269).

This work was the little tract entitled The Necessity
of Atheism, for which Shelley was expelled.

Mr. Hogg, whose statement has been adopted by
every succeeding writer, has said that this little
pamphlet " was never offered for sale," and that " it
was not addressed to an ordinary reader, but to the
metaphysician alone." That it was " never offered for
sale" was certainly not the fault or the intention of
the author, as proved by the following advertisement,
which is now for the first time given in connexion
with Shelley's life. It was this bold and open an-
nouncement on the part of the author that the work
would be published and sold in the ordinary way, that
probably compelled the authorities of Oxford to take
notice of a tract, the existence of which they might
otherwise not have known. Had it been announced

Io8 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

in the London papers that a work entitled The Necessity
of Atheism was about to be published, even " by a
gentleman of the University/'' it would have provoked
little attention at Oxford, whither the waifs and strays
of blasphemy,, ever floating in the metropolis, seldom
found their way. Far different was it when in a
journal circulating largely in the University, and
calling itself " The Oxford University and City
Herald/' the following portentous announcement
appeared : —

Speedily will be published,
To be had of the Booksellers of London and Oxford,

THE

NECESSITY OF ATHEISM.

"Quod clara et perspicua demonstratione caveat pro vero habere,
mens omnino nequit humause." — Bacon de Augment. Scient.

This advertisement appears in The Oxford University
and City Herald of Saturday, Feb. 9th, 1811. It has
hitherto been unknown. Should the authorities of
Oxford University require any defence for the manner
in which they acted towards the author, this advertise-
ment will, I think, show that it was scarcely possible
for them to overlook the carrying out of an intention
so audaciously announced.

In January, 1811, this tract had been offered to
Mr. John Joseph Stockdale for publication. St.
Irvyne, Shelley's second prose romance, had just been
published by him. Mr. Hogg, as Shelley's friend, had
called on Stockdale, and appears to have impressed the
publisher very unfavourably. " I really did not credit/*
writes Mr. Stockdale, " that with, as I thought, a mind
so infinitely beneath that of his friend, he could be
the master spirit to lead him astray." Some inquiries
instituted by Mr. Stockdale, and the fact that Mr.

MR. STOCKDALES OPINION OF MR. HOGG. 109

Hogg was made the medium of submitting to him for
publication the manuscript of The Necessity of Atheism,
removed all doubt from the conscientious mind of the
worthy publisher. The author of Shelley in Pall Mall
tells the story of the quarrel between the young author
and Mr. Stockdale, but Mr. Garnett does not give the
letter of Mr. Hogg to the latter, which has a double
interest : first, in evidently referring to the manuscript
of The Necessity of Atheism ; and secondly, in alluding
to Mr. Peter Finnerty, whose conduct, it would seem,
had met with the approval even of the fastidious Mr.
Hogg.

Writing from Oxford, Jan. sist, 1811, he says : —

" The bare mention of the MS. which I entrusted
to you was an unparalleled breach of confidence. There
have been instances of booksellers who have honourably
refused to betray the authors whose works they have
published, although actions were brought against them.
I believe that one gentleman had honour enough to sub-
mit to the pillory rather than disgrace himself by giving
up the name of one who had confided in him, however
unworthy he might be of such generous treatment." —
Stockdale's Budget, p. 34.

The gentleman who had honour enough to submit
to the pillory, there can be no doubt, was Mr. Finnerty.
The circumstance is alluded to in the article already
quoted from The Examiner, but which was known to
Mr. Hogg earlier, probably from the letter of Finnerty
himself — the so-called libel — which had been published
in The Statesman and The Morning Chronicle of
January a8th, 1810.

The story of the expulsion of Shelley, and also of
Mr. Hogg, from Oxford, is too well known to be re-

j ! 0 PERCY B YSSHE SHELLEY.

peated here; but one or two circumstances hitherto
unnoticed may be mentioned in connexion with his
residence at the University, which, though of no great
importance in themselves, may be useful to the future
biographer of Shelley.

In Mr. Hogg's book (vol. i. p. 396) there is a letter
of Shelley's to that gentleman, undated as usual, but
written probably about the end of April, 1811. In
this letter, referring to his sister Elizabeth, he says : —
" Elizabeth is indeed an unworthy companion of the
Muses. I do not rest much on her poetry now.
Miss Philipps betrayed twice the genius; greater
amiability, if to affect the feelings is a proof of the
excess of the latter/' In another letter printed a few
pages earlier (p. 386), though written certainly after
the preceding, as it is dated from Khayader, Shelley
again mentions the name of Philipps.

" I have at this moment no money, as Philipps' s and
the other debt have drained me."" The " other debt"
may have been, perhaps, some part payment to Stock-
dale, as we have a letter of Shelley's from the same
place on August ist, 1811, promising to settle the
publisher's account as soon as possible. Mr. Hogg
gives us no information as to who the lady was in
whose poetry Shelley felt so interested, neither does
he explain what " Philipps's debt " could mean. The
accident of my finding on a book-stall a little volume
entitled " Poems by Janetta Phillips. Oxford : Printed
by Colliogwood and Co., i8ii/' may perhaps clear up
the mystery, and will exhibit Shelley in the amiable
light of being an active encourager of a youthful muse.
The little volume possesses a greater interest than this.
It is probably the only place where the names of
Percy Bysshe Shelley and Harriet Westbrook ever

P OEMS BY JA NETTA PHILIPPS. 1 1 1

appeared together in public before their marriage.
The poems are preceded by a long list of subscribers,
chiefly belonging to the various colleges of Oxford.
The particular copy which I picked up belonged to
one of these, " Mr. Coffin, University College," whose
name is written on the cover. The list is an alphabe-
tical one. Under the letter " S." I had the pleasure of
finding the following entries : —

"Mr. P. B. Shelley — six copies.
" Miss Shelley, Field Place, Sussex.
"Miss Hellen Shelley."

In letter " M." we have " Thomas Medwin, Esq.,
Horsham," and " Mr. Munday, bookseller, Oxford."
Elsewhere we find the names of " Mrs. Grove, Lin-
coln's Inn Fields — three copies," " C. Grove, Esq.,"
" Mr. Graham, 29, Vine Street, Piccadilly." But
perhaps the most interesting name in the entire list is
that of " Miss H. Westbrook." It should be noticed
that to Shelley's name the address " University
College " is not added. This is usually the case with
those subscribers who were members of the University.
Of this class there are upwards of eighty in the list.
This would imply that the printing of this part of the
volume at least was not completed until after Shelley
had left Oxford. The obtaining such a numerous list
of subscribers, among whom is the present venerable
Duke of Leinster, who left Oxford in 1811, must have
taken a considerable time. With the exception of a
" Mr. Philipps," probably a relative of Janetta Philipps,
the author of the poems, who took six copies, no one
subscribed for so many as Shelley. This circumstance,
taken in connexion with the fact of so many of his
relatives and friends uniting to sustain the work,

! I2 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

raises a strong presumption in my mind that Shelley
had undertaken the responsibility of bringing out the
volume, and that to this the phrase " Philipps's debt"
refers. The Oxford subscribers were probably secured
while Shelley was at the University, and those of his
sisters and Harriet Westbrook during the Christmas
vacation of 1810-11, when he was at home. It is not
at all improbable that Harriet Westbrook's name was
first obtained by Hellen Shelley, who was at school
with her at Clapham, and to this circumstance may be
attributed the first acquaintance of the poet with his
future wife. It may have been in return for this sub-
scription that Shelley, on January i ith, j8n, requested
Stockdale to " send a copy of St. Irvyne to Miss
Harriet Westbrook, 10, Chapel Street, Grosvenor
Square/' where she was at home with her father for
the Christmas holidays.

Shelley and his friend Mr. Hogg, as is well known,
were expelled on Lady-day, 1811, and left Oxford for
London on the following morning. They took lodgings
at 15, Poland Street, Oxford Street, and remained
together for about three weeks, when Mr. Hogg went
to York, where he entered the chambers of a convey-
ancer. It is very curious that during the three weeks
they lived together in Poland Street, the Poetical Essay
on the Existing State of Things was advertised several
times in the London papers without Mr. Hogg being
let into the secret of the composition and publication
of this poem. Advertisements will be found in The
Times, April loth and April iith — that is, about the
middle of that period of unrestricted confidence, as
Mr. Hogg would have us believe, in which the friends
lived together in London after their expulsion from
Oxford.

MR. TIMOTHY SHELLEY AND MR. HOGG. 1 13

Mr. Timothy Shelley, the father of the poet, had,
during the Stockdale affair, expressed an opinion that
Mr. Jefferson Hogg was " the original corruptor" of
his son's principles ; so at least Shelley had informed
his friend. Up to this time there was nothing hut
eulogy and admiration expressed hy Mr. Hogg in his
book towards " the divine poet/' but now he had a
duty to discharge from which he did not shrink. " I
do not believe," says Mr. Hogg, " that Mr. T. Shelley
ever let fall the expressions which were imputed to
him" — thus charging Shelley with having written a
deliberate falsehood. " It is my duty to speak the
truth, the whole truth/' says this veracious biographer,
cf and therefore I cannot but confess that the poor
fellow [Shelley ! his " incomparable friend/' the
" divine poet "] had many underhand ways ; these I
found out, sometimes long subsequent to the event"
(vol. i. p. 3 29).

The " underhand ways " here referred to may, per-
haps, mean those opinions on the character and conduct
of Mr. Hogg himself which, though unpublished, still
exist in the handwriting of Shelley. There was nothing
" underhand " whatever 'in those communications. In
less direct language, Shelley had written to Mr. Hogg
himself on the same circumstance. And there cer-
tainly was nothing " underhand " in his breaking off
for twelve months all communication with his college
friend on account of the same transaction. The ex-
istence of these letters Mr. Hogg probably " found
out," and he thus attempts to prejudice the judgment
of the public when they shall have been given to the
world. But one notable instance at least of Shelley's
" underhand ways" he did not find out — namely, that
while to his guileless friend the romantic young poet

i

, j 4 PERCY B YSSHE SHELLEY.

appeared to be only thinking of Thaddeus of Warsaw
in their trellised chamber in Poland Street, he was
engaged in constant intercourse with Messrs. Crosby
and Co., of Stationers' Court, Ludgate Hill, and adver-
tising through them in the public papers a poem which
he had written and published without the knowledge
of Mr. Hogg.

Harriet Westbrook was the schoolfellow of Shelley's
sisters at a boarding-school kept by a lady of the name
of Fenning. I have already suggested that the ac-
quaintance between Shelley and Harriet arose out of
her subscription to the poems of Janetta Philipps.
With the usual carelessness attending every statement
made about Shelley,, four different localities are as-
signed to the school at which Shelley's sisters and
Harriet Westbrook were fellow-pupils. Miss Hellen
Shelley, who was at the school, says " Clapham ;"
Lady Shelley, by a slip of the pen, writes " Brompton ;"
Mr. Hogg calls the place " Wandsworth -" and Mr.
Middleton, " Balham Hill." The following extracts
from unpublished letters of Harriet herself will show
that the school was situated at Clapham. The follow-
ing was written a few months" after her marriage, to a
lady of whom we shall hear a good deal more in the
following pages : —

(From an unpublished letter of Harriet Shelley.}
" But I know you now, and this blessing I should
not have had if I had never been to Clapham. So I
must be content and think myself very happy that I
did go, though I was not aware of the happiness that
would result."

In another unpublished letter to the same person
poor Harriet again fixes the locality of the school,

UNPUBLISHED LETTERS OF HARRIET SHELLEY. 115

and refers to the horror with which she had heard
while there of Shell ey's peculiar opinions.

(From an unpublished letter of Harriet Shelley.}
" Being brought up in the Christian religion, you
may conceive with what horror I first heard that
Percy was an Atheist — at least so it was given out at
Clap/iam. At first I did not comprehend the mean-
ing of the word, therefore when it was explained I
was truly petrified. I wondered how he could live a
moment professing such principles, and solemnly de-
clared that he should never change mine."

Alas for human resolutions ! the sequel proves,, un-
fortunately, how easily and how fatally they were
changed.

If we fix the first week in January, i8u, as the
date at which Shelley became acquainted with Harriet
Westbrook, we find that either by letter or per-
sonal observation he had eight months to form an
opinion of her disposition and character before she
became his wife. The circumstances of the marriage
are well known. In the first week of September,
18 1 1, Shelley and Harriet proceeded to Edinburgh
and were married according to the Scottish law.
How Shelley then regarded her, and still regarded her
a year later, we shall have the opportunity of showing
a little further on from an unpublished letter of
Shelley himself. In 1813, two years after the
marriage, he dedicated to her Queen Mob.
" Whose eyes have I gazed fondly on,
And loved mankind the more ?"

Shelley asks in the dedication of this poem, and
answers his own question thus — " Harriet, on thine ;"
and yet the reality, or at least the intensity of

, ^ PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

his love for Harriet at any time has been questioned.
On the 24th of March, 1814, he re-married her at the
Church of St. George, Hanover Square, " in order/'
as the certificate states, " to obviate all doubts that
have arisen or shall or may arise touching or concerning
the validity of the aforesaid marriage " in Scotland.
On the 28th of July in the same year — that is, in less
than four months after having thus made assurance
doubly sure — Shelley went off to the Continent with
Miss Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, accompanied by
Miss Clairmont, the daughter of Mr. Godwin's second
wife by a former marriage.

Mr. Garnett, in his interesting little volume, Relics
of Shelley, published in 1862, refers to certain un-
published letters of Shelley and Harriet which he
believes will place this painful matter in a more
favourable light than the circumstances of the case
itself unfortunately present it. If any documents
exist showing that Harriet was a party to the se-
paration, they certainly should be published. It is
expressly denied on her own authority that she was
so, by Mr. Peacock, who saw her several times after
the occurrence. Should any such letters be forth-
coming they will put an end to the charge of
desertion as it is usually understood, but they scarcely
can excuse Shelley for a worse kind of abandonment —
the leaving a young girl, whose moral and religious
principles he had overthrown, to the guidance of those
fine-sounding philosophical axioms she had learned
from him, which he did not follow in the hour of trial,
and which brought her to destruction.

After a few weeks' residence in Edinburgh the young
married couple were joined by Mr. Hogg. Towards the
end of October the whole party proceeded to York, where

M YSTER1 0 US INCIDENT A T YORK. 1 1 7

Mr. Hogg was to resume his attendance at Chambers.
On the morning after their arrival there Shelley was
compelled to go up to London to consult his father's
solicitor about some arrangements that were then
pending. According to Mr. Hogg, Harriet was left
in York under his own immediate protection. Other
evidence would show that she accompanied her
husband on this occasion, and that Mr. Hogg in this
part of his book mixes up and confuses two distinct
transactions. Something, however, unquestionably did
occur at York in the absence of Shelley, that neces-
sitated the arrival there of Eliza Westbrook, the elder
sister of Harriet, in the position, as Mr. Hogg sneer-
ingly admits, " of a guardian angel.1" Shelley himself
returned from London or perhaps from Keswick, on
the following day, when the whole party got immediate
notice from their landlady to leave their lodgings.
A few days later Shelley, Harriet, and Eliza West-
brook, without telling Mr. Hogg of their intention, or
bidding him good-bye, abruptly left York and pro-
ceeded to Keswick. I have collected a good deal of
curious matter on this subject, which though most im-
portant in a complete survey of Shelley's life, would
occupy too large a space in this investigation. It is
enough to say that those who feel an interest in the
subject can get a tolerably clear idea of the circum-
stances which put an end to all intercourse between.
Shelley and his friend Mr. Hogg for more than a year,
if they turn to the second volume, p. 490, of that
gentleman's so-called Life of the poet, and read there
what is very questionably called a " Fragment of a
Novel/' The substitution of two real names for those
of " Charlotte" and " Albert/' will greatly assist them
in understanding the true meaning of this singular

j r g PERG Y B YSSHE SHELLS Y.

" Fragment/' which there can be little doubt is a
portion, however altered, of a genuine letter.

Mr. Hogg doubtless had very good reason for repre-
senting this affair as a fiction, but in mere matters of
fact he is equally untrustworthy. On the 28th of
October, 1 8 1 1 , the day before he left York for
Keswick, without taking leave of Mr. Hogg, Shelley
wrote to the Duke of Norfolk the letter which has
been published by Mr. Philip H. Howard of Cor by
Castle in Notes and Queries, Nov. soth, 1858. Mr.
Hogg, owing to the estrangement which had taken
place, was not informed of this letter. Wishing it to
be supposed that a friendly intercourse still continued
between himself and the poet after the abrupt depar-
ture of the latter for Keswick, he says, " My instruc-
tions with regard to Shelley's correspondence, were to
open all letters that should come to York for him,
and to despatch such only as appeared to me worth
the postage. Many letters arrived daily, but few of
them merited to be sent farther. One of the few was
an invitation, kindly and cordially worded from the
Duke of Norfolk, to visit him at Gray stoke. It was
franked by his grace and dated November 7th, 1811.
The letter was transmitted to Keswick, and the visit
was paid." — vol. ii. p. 23.

This is really too good a specimen of Mr. Hogg's
power of invention to be passed over. The reason
alleged for not sending all Shelley's letters forward
was to save postage on those that were not worth it.
Now as the letter of the Duke of Norfolk was not
only " franked by his grace," but probably sealed with
his arms, one might expect that Mr. Hogg could have
let that important document pass without examina-
tion. But no. Mr. Hogg's instructions were too

DIARY OF CHARLES, DUKE OF NORFOLK. 119

precise, and he accordingly opened the ducal letter
and read in it " an invitation" which it did not con-
tain. The substance of that letter is given in the
private Diary of Charles, Duke of Norfolk, still
preserved at Corby Castle, some interesting extracts
from which have been kindly transcribed for me by
Mr. Philip H. Howard, whose father was the executor
of his grace. So far from inviting Shelley to Grey-
stoke, in the letter so curiously misdescribed by Mr.
Hogg, the Duke of Norfolk seems to have thought
that the poet's father was not without justification in
the way he was acting towards his son. There is a
little of sternness in the reply of his grace to the
young poet's appeal, but he nevertheless proposes to
call on Shelley in York to speak to him more fully
on the subject of his letter. The invitation which
formed the subject of a second letter was not written
until the 23rd of November, and could never have
passed through the Hands of Mr. Hogg. He knew,
however, that Shelley, his wife, and Eliza Westbrook
spent some days at Greystoke, and he not unnaturally
considered that the letter of the yth of November to
York, " franked by his grace/' contained the " invita-
tion." But he should not have said he " opened"
and read the letter, which from his misdescription of
its contents he certainly could not have done.

The following are the extracts kindly furnished me
by Philip II. Howard, Esq., of Corby Castle : —

" Llary of Charles, Duke of Norfolk.

" 1811, Nov. 7.— Wrote to T. Shelly that I would
come to Field Place on the loth, to confer with
him on the unhappy difference with his son,
from whom I have a letter before me.

5 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

" To Mr. B. Shelly in answer that I
should be glad to interfere, but fear with little
hope of success ; fearing that his father, and
not he alone, will see his late conduct in a diffe-
rent point of view from what he sees it.

" That I propose going into the North next
week, and will come to York to see him, pro-
vided he will inform me when I may find him
there.

" Nov. 10. — Wrote to Mr. Shelly, dined at Hor-
sham.

" Nov. 23. — Wrote to Mr. B. Shelly to invite
him,* his wife, and her sister to meet me at
Greystoke. Came to Parlington, dined and
slept.

[Reaches Appleby it appears on the 25th.]

" Nov. 26. — Greystoke — Wrote to Mr. and Mrs.
Howard of Levens, inviting them to Greystoke,
to Mr. and Mrs. H. de C." (Howard of Corby,
the father and mother of Mr. Philip Henry
Howard), "to Mr. and Mrs. B. Shelly do.

f' Dec. i. — Mr. and Mrs. B. Shelly, his wife, and
her sister came. Wrote to his father thereon.

" Dec. 6. — Wrote in answer to Mayor of Thet-
ford, &c.

" In this week, Lady Musgrave, Mr. and
Mrs. H. de C., Messrs. Calvert, and James
Brougham at the castle.

"Dec. 9. — Came with Mr. Wybergh to Greta
Bridge.

* The date of this entry, "November 23rd," conclusively dis-
poses of Mr. Hogg's assertion that the invitation to Greystoke was
giveii in the letter of November 7th, 181 1.

ALLUSIONS IN THE DUKE'S DIARY. 121

"Dec. io.— To Parlington.

"Dec. ii. — To Doncaster.

" Dec. 12. — To Worksop [whence he writes many
letters, and one] " to T. Shelly, on subject of his
son, from whom I expected a letter, when he
should again hear from me/'

Mr. Philip II. Howard not only favoured me with
this very interesting extract from the Diary of the
Duke of Norfolk, but kindly explained some of the
allusions. Thus, in reference to Parlington, he says : —
" Parlington named several times was the seat in
Yorkshire of Sir Thomas Gascoyne, the last Bart,
and male representative of that ancient family."
With regard to Lady Musgrave, he says — " The Lady
Musgrave named would be the widow of Sir John
Charden Musgrave, of Edenhall, a daughter of Sir
Edmund Filmer, Bart., of Kent, a near neighbour."
He further adds, " Lady Musgrave, of Edenhall, Cum-
berland, and Hartley Castle, Cumberland, was a good
Italian scholar, and a person of considerable attain-
ments, the mother of the present and two preceding
Baronets. You will remember that an ancestor, Sir
Philip Musgrave, was the celebrated cavalier leader
(temp. Car. I.) The Shelleys seem to have left 8th
December, or perhaps the pth. The Duke in his
Diary generally names my father and mother Mr. and
Mrs. H. de C., that is, Howard of Corby."

Mr. Calvert and Mr. James Brougham are also
described by Mr. Howard in his valuable letter, but
these I defer until the equally interesting extract
from his mother's Journal, describing the party at
Greystoke, is given.

There is a published letter from Shelley to Mr.

, 2 2 PERC F B YSSHE SHELLS Y.

Medwin senior, referring to this intended visit to
Grey stoke. It is well known, and has some distressing
passages in it. Two referring to his actual cir-
cumstances may be given. The letter is dated
" Keswick, Cumberland, November 3oth, 1 8 1 1, My Dear
Sir .... " We are now so poor as to be actually in
danger of every day being deprived of the necessaries
of life," . . . . " and it is nearly with our very last
guinea that we visit the Duke of Norfolk, at Grey-
stoke, to-morrow. We return to Keswick on Wednes-
day. I have very few hopes from this visit." —
Med win's Life of Shelley, i. p. 376.

The 30th of November, 1811, fell upon a Saturday,
so that the visit was intended to last until Wednes-
day, the 4th of December. Mr. Howard con-
siders that the Shelleys remained at Greystoke until
the 8th, or perhaps the 9th. The following is the
extract from Mrs. Howard's Journal, sent by her son : —

" Extract from my Mother s Journal.

" Corby Castle, 181 I, December 1st, 2nd, 3rd.

" I had a terrible journey [to Greystoke], with
hail, snow, and sleet, and only arrived at half-past
six.

" I had the pleasure of finding the Duke of Norfolk
very well, and in good spirits. Lady [Musgrave ?*]
with Mr. and Mrs. Shelley, and Miss Westbrook, her
sister ; Mr. James Brougham, and Mr. Calvert, were
the party."

* The name is inadvertently omitted by Mrs. Howard in her
journal, but there can be no doubt from the entry in the Duke of
Norfolk's Diary, December 6th, that it must have been Lady
Musgrave who, with Mr. and Mrs. Howard, Mr. James Brougham,
and Mr. Calvert, met the Shelleys at Greystoke.

EXTRACT FROM MRS. HOWARD'S JOURNAL. 123

Mrs. Howard's journal being intended only for her
own use, she doubtless thought it superfluous to
mention her husband. Her son says : " My father,
Henry Howard, will have been there all the time/'
Of Mr. Brougham and Mr. Calvert mentioned in the
journal, Mr. Philip H. Howard says in his letter to
me : — " James Brougham, named as having met the
Shelleys at Greystoke, was second brother of the late
Lord Brougham. He represented Kendal in the first
reformed Parliament, having sat previously for Tregony
and Winchelsea. Mr.. Calvert, of Greta Bank, was a
Cumberland Squire, very popular in his day/' The
Calverts were neighbours of Southey, and became
Shelley's greatest friends at Keswick. We shall see
subsequently in what terms he spoke of Mrs. Calvert
in particular, in some of his unpublished letters. As
neither Mr. James Brougham nor Mr. Henry Howard
could have been correctly described as " elderly " in
1811, the allusion in the following most interesting
extract from an unpublished letter of Shelley to a
friend, refers in all probability to Mr. Calvert •* —

(From an unpublished letter of Shelley.)

* . . . " We met several people at the Duke's. One
in particular struck me. He was an elderly man, who
seemed to know all my concerns, and the expression
of his face, whenever I held the argument, which I do

* Mr. Howard, who met Shelley at Greystoke in 1811, was
then fifty-four years of age. - I am indebted for this information to
his son, Philip H. Howard, Esq., of Corby Castle, who tells me that
his father was born on July 2nd, 1757, in the reign of George the
Second. Mr. James Brougham, the eldest brother of the first Lord
Brougham, was born January i6th, 1780, and was therefore in his
thirty-second year when he met Shelley at the Duke of Norfolk's.

j 24 PERCY B YSSHE SHELLEY.

everywhere, was such as I shall not readily forget.
1 shall have more to tell of him, for we have met him
before in these mountains, and his peculiar look struck
[me?] [and] Harriet/'

The manuscript is a little illegible in the place I
have marked, but the two words do not affect the
sense. The latter part of the passage, referring to
Harriet and himself having met the " elderly man"
among the mountains, corroborates an impression
which I had previously entertained that Shelley had
removed to Keswick earlier than Mr. Hogg would
have us to believe. As already mentioned, another
passage, which will subsequently be given in full,
shows that Shelley had made the acquaintance of
Southey before the 2oth of October, the day it will be
remembered on which he wrote to Mr. Whitton from
Cuck field.

There is no record of Shelley having made any
other acquaintances at Keswick but Southey and the
Calverts. Coleridge unfortunately was not at the
lakes during the period of Shelley's visit. He thinks
he might have been of some use to the young philo-
sopher (for at that time he had published nothing
under his own name which could give even a faint
hope of his becoming a poet) had he been at Keswick,
but it so happened that he was not, and Southey re-
ceived him instead. This he considered a misfortune
for Shelley. " I might have been of use to him, and
Southey could not; for I should have sympathized
with his poetics, metaphysical reveries, and the very
word metaphysics is an abomination to Southey, and
Shelley would have felt that I understood him/'
Another celebrated writer who could not plead the
excuse of absence seems to have regretted in after

COLERIDGE AND DE QUINCE Y. 125

years that he did not at this period avail himself of
the opportunity of " showing some little attention to
a brother Oxonian and a man of letters." This was
Thomas De Quincey, who was then living at Grasmere,
thirteen miles from Keswick. From the very am-
biguous way in which De Quincey writes, some careless
readers, as well as Lady Shelley and Mr. Rossetti,
have inferred that he became acquainted though
slightly with Shelley. The simple fact, though in-
volved in a cloud of verbiage, is, that he did not call
on him. The fanciful description of Shelley, ee that
he looked like an elegant and tender flower, whose
head drooped from being surcharged with rain," was
one which De Quincey " had heard of him in some
company." It was probably six years later, when an
interest was created in his mind by the Revolt of
Islam, he remembered, no doubt with regret at not
having seen him, that the future author of that poem
had been a neighbour of his for four months. We
have, however, from De Quincey the fact, though in-
directly, that Shelley did not make the acquaintance
of Wordsworth, then residing at Grasmere, or of John
Wilson, whose Isle of Palms was published in the
year of Shelley's visit to the lakes. Though De
Quincey came, I think, somewhat late to the knowledge
of Shelley's writings, his essay conveys at once an
eloquent and a discriminating estimate both of the
genius and character of the poet. The opening
sentence is particularly true, and should always be
borne in mind by those who write or read of Shelley.
" There is no writer named amongst men," says De
Quincey, " of whom, so much as of Percy Bysshe
Shelley, it is difficult for a conscientious critic to
speak with the profound respect, on the one hand due

j 26 PERC Y B YS8HE SHELLE Y.

to his exalted powers, and yet without offence on the
other, to feelings the most sacred which too memorably
he outraged" (Works, vol. v. p. i). The essay, how-
ever, is full of mistakes, one of which only need be
pointed out here. Like Coleridge, De Quincey seems
to have thought that he too would have been of more
use to Shelley than the Laureate. Speaking of the
attractions of Grasmere he says, " Finally, my own
library, which being rich in the wickedest of German
speculations would naturally have been more to
Shelley's taste than the Spanish library of Southey.
As Shelley at this time knew as little of German as
he did of Spanish, it is difficult to understand how he
could have been much interested in these departments
of either library. We learn, however, from De
Quincey the following interesting fact : — te The
Shelleys," he tells us, " had been induced by one of
their new friends to take part of a house standing
about half a mile on the Penrith road, more I believe,
according to that friend's intention, for the sake of
bringing them within reach of his own hospitalities
than for any beauty in the place/' Had this friend
been Southey, as Captain Medwin suggests, De Quincey
would doubtless have been glad to set off this act of
kindness against what Coleridge calls the " harshness"
of the Laureate's later manner towards his young
neighbour. A more likely person was Mr. Calvert,
the " elderly man" whose acquaintance Shelley first
made at the Duke of Norfolk's. An unpublished
letter, written by Shelley on the 3rd of February,
1812, immediately after his leaving Keswick, confirms
this supposition. An extract from that letter will be
given in its proper place. In one of the eight un-
dated letters to Hogg from Keswick, he says, " The

RESIDENCE AT KESWICK. 127

thing is, we are not in, but near Keswick." At-
tached to this house, but not belonging to their por-
tion of it, was the garden* in which with girlish sim-
plicity and innocence poor Harriet told some of her
lady visitors that Percy and herself were let to " run
about" when they were tired of sitting within doors.
Poor child ! what a race was that for her elsewhere
on a certain occasion in the " drear-nighted December"
of 1816!

From the very beginning of Shelley's residence at
Keswick, he appears to have been occupied with those
questions connected with the state of Ireland which
led to the extraordinary and romantic expedition to
Dublin in the following February. The quotation
from The Curse of Kehama, which he adapted to the
condition of Ireland, and prefixed as a motto to the
poem published to assist in maintaining an Irish
patriot in prison, shows that nearly twelve months
before his generous enthusiasm had been roused on
behalf of that ill-governed and badly treated country.

" And Famine, at her bidding, wasted wide
The wretched land, till in the public way,
Promiscuous where the dead and dying lay,
Dogs fed on human bones in the open light of day."

Instead of Southey setting his young visitor to sleep,
as absurdly narrated by Mr. Hogg, by reading this
poem in manuscript, when it had already been pub-
lished a year, Shelley may possibly have made
Southey open his eyes in astonishment at finding The

* In a playful letter to Hartley Coleridge, June I3th, 1807,
Southey has the following allusion to the Calverts' garden. " We
had one day hotter than had been remarked for fourteen years ;
the glass was at 85° in the shade ; in the sun in Mr. Calvert's
garden at 118°."

! 28 PERCY B YSSHE SHELLEY.

Curse of Keliama turned already to such vile uses as
to supply a motto for a poem that absolutely expressed
some sympathy for the suffering Irish. There was a
time when Southey himself was not ashamed of sharing
and avowing feelings precisely similar. Those were
the days when from that very house in Keswick he
apostrophized the shade of Robert Emmett. Every
one knows the famous and touching entreaty of that
young enthusiast. " Let no one write my epitaph.
Let my character and my motives repose in obscurity
and peace till other times and other men can do them
justice. Then shall my character be vindicated, then
may my epitaph be written." Robert Southey thought
it would be hazardous to wait for " other times and
other men/' when there was a man then living so
capable, perhaps alone capable, of doing this act of
justice to the memory of his martyred namesake.

Accordingly we have, from the future author of The
Vision of Judgment, this mild and modest expostulation
in reference to the last wish and the dying words of his
" young hero/'

.'"Emmett, no!

No withering curse hath dried my spirit up,
That I should now be silent, .... that my soul
Should from the stirring inspiration shrink,
Now when it shakes her, and withhold her voice,
Of that divinest impulse never more
Worthy, if impious I withheld it now,
Hardening my heart. Here, here in this free Isle,
To which in thy young virtue's erring zeal
Thou wert so perilous an enemy ;
Here in free England shall an English hand
Build thy imperishable monument"

Works, one vol. ed. p. 140.

Many persons believe that had the spirit of recent legis-
lation influenced the action of government in 1803, " the

ROBERT SOUTHEY AND ROBERT EMMETT. 129

often- widowed Erin" would not have had to " mourn
the loss" of one of " her brave young men" at least.
That gentler and wiser spirit commenced in 1829 with
the act of Catholic Emancipation, which great measure,
though not passed in his lifetime, had no sincerer
advocate than Robert Emmett. But what did his pane-
gyrist— he who raised an "imperishable monument"
of rather perishable blank verse to his memory — what
did he think in 1811 of that question, and of the
people who were so deeply interested in its settle-
ment ? Shelley will tell us. In the unpublished
letter of the loth of October, 1811, subsequently
referred to, he says : —

" Southey hates the Irish ;"* he speaks against
Catholic Emancipation. In all these things we differ.
Our differences were the subject of a long conversation."

We shall find from another unpublished letter,
written immediately after his leaving Keswick three
months later, that the " differences" between Shelley
and Southey increased every day to such an extent
that the youthful admiration of Shelley for the author
of Thalaba was greatly cooled, if it was not wholly
extinguished, while at the same time he admits the
possibility of his many private virtues.

* Southey appears to have had during his life two contradictory
opinions and two opposite states of feeling about everything. In
1 80 1, when in Dublin, he rather liked " the Irish," and gave the
people generally some credit even for " genius." In a letter dated
Dublin, October i6th, 1801, he says: — "Genius, indeed, imme-
diately appears to characterize them ; a love of saying good things,
which 999 Englishmen in 1000 never dream of attempting in
the course of their lives." — Life and Correspondence of Robert
Southey, vol. ii. p. 170.

CHAPTER VII.

r~PHE preparation for the Irish campaign and the ex-
ceedingly interesting correspondence with Godwin
which Shelley commenced on the 3rd of January, 1812,
fill up the whole of that month. The letters to and from
Godwin being among the valuable materials confided to
Mr. Hogg, he had no opportunity of exercising his
very perplexing ingenuity in suppressing, transposing,
or otherwise confusing any portion of their contents.
The reader is therefore referred to that portion of
Mr. Hogg's book with perfect confidence. I shall only
make a few extracts in reference to the meditated
descent on Dublin to carry Catholic Emancipation and
to repeal the TInion.

In the second letter to Godwin, January 1 6th, 1812,
he gives the philosopher a list of his writings up to
that period ; among them is an " Essay on Love,"
" a little poem," which he says was written after he
had become acquainted with the profounder works of
his correspondent, seeming thereby to attach to it a
greater importance. I have already suggested that
this " Essay on Love" may have been nothing else
than the te Poetical Essay on the Existing State of
Things" under a new name. He then continues :
" In a few days we set off to Dublin. I do not know
exactly when, but a letter addressed to Keswick will
find me. Our journey has been settled some time.
We go principally to forward as much as we (viz.,

LETTERS TO GODWIN. 131

Harriet, Eliza, and myself) can the Catholic Eman-
cipation.

" Southey, the poet whose principles were pure and
elevated once, is now the paid champion of every abuse
and absurdity. I have had much conversation with
him. He says, ' you will think as I do when you are
as old/ I do not feel the least disposition to be
Mr. S'/s proselyte/'

On January 28th, 1812, he again writes to Godwin :
(f Your letter has reached me on the eve of our de-
parture for Dublin. I cannot deny myself the
pleasure of answering it, although we shall probably
have reached Ireland before an answer to this can
arrive. You do us a great and essential service by
the enclosed introduction to Mr. Curran : he is a
man whose public character I have admired and
respected. You offer an additional motive for
hastening our journey

" With these sentiments I have been preparing an
address to the Catholics of Ireland, which, however
deficient may be its execution, I can by no means
admit that it contains one sentiment which can harm
the cause of liberty and happiness. It consists of
the benevolent and tolerant deductions of philosophy
reduced into the simplest language. I know it can
do no harm ; it cannot excite rebellion, as its main
principle is to trust the success of a cause to the energy
of its truth. It cannot " widen the breach between
the kingdoms," as it attempts to convey to the vulgar
mind sentiments of universal philanthropy ; and what-
ever impressions it may produce, they can be no other
but those of peace and harmony ; it owns no religion
but benevolence, no cause but virtue, no party but the
world. 1 shall devote myself with unremitting zeal,

K 2

I32 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

as far as an uncertain state of health will permit,
towards forwarding the great ends of virtue and
happiness in Ireland, regarding as I do the present
state of that country's affairs as an opportunity which,
if I, being thus disengaged, permit to pass unoccupied,
I am unworthy of the character which I have assumed."
It has been stated by Mr. Hogg, who was kept
in profound ignorance of all these proceedings, and
repeated by others on his unsupported assertions, that
it was owing to Shelley's disgust at the failure of the
project in Dublin that he left that city abruptly before
the expiration of the time he had arranged to stay
there. This will be found to be quite incorrect.
The subsequent residence in Wales was pre-arranged
before he left Keswick, and fixed with the same de-
liberation as the visit to Dublin itself. "We left
Dublin," Shelley says in an unpublished letter from
which more will be quoted, " because I had done all
that I could do." The following passage in the fore-
going letter to Godwin shows that before he went to
Dublin Shelley had planned the residence in Wales : —

" I will say no more of Wales at present. We
have determined next summer to receive a most dear
friend, of whom I shall speak hereafter, in some ro-
mantic spot. Perhaps I shall be able to prevail on
you and your wife and children to leave the tumult and
dust of London for awhile. However that maybe, I shall
certainly see you in London. I am not yet of age. At
that time I have great hopes of being enabled to offer
you a house of my own. Philanthropy is confined
to no spot. Adieu ! Direct your next ' Post Office,
Dublin/

" My wife sends her respects.

SHELLETS "POEMS" TO BE PUBLISHED IN DUBLIN. 133

" Believe me, in all sincerity of heart, yours truly,
sincerely, "P. B. SHELLEY.

"To Mr. William Godwin, London."

The " dear friend" alluded to by Shelley was Miss
Eliza Hitchener of Hurstpierpoint, Brighton, with whom
he was carrying on a voluminous correspondence at this
time. The antecedents of this lady's history will be
found a little further on, as sketched by no less a per-
sonage than the Right Hon. Thomas Pelham, Earl of
Chichester, joint Postmaster- General with the Earl
of Sandwich. This lady received intelligence, two days
earlier than Godwin, of the intended visit to Dublin.
The letter to her has not been published, but I am per-
mitted to make the following extract from it, which
contains some very curious information not hitherto
known : —

(From an unpublished letter of Shelley.)

" Keswick, January 26th, 1812.

" All is prepared. I have been busily engaged in
an address to the Irish people which will be printed
as Paine's works were, and posted on the walls of
Dublin. My poems will be printed there"

I have italicized the last line for the singular
interest of the intention which it announces. Dublin,
the chosen city where the first collection of Shelley's
poems was to have been published ! What poems
can he have alluded to? Were we to have Victor
without Cazire, and Fitz- Victor without Mr. Hogg?
That alone I think would have been a happy consum-
mation. But these were rather insignificant materials
to be called his " poems." In this collection, beyond
all doubt, we would have had the Poetical Essay on the

I34 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

Existing State of Things and the Essay on Love, if they
were not the same. In every point of view it is to be
regretted that this idea was not carried out. "What a
treasure would not that Dublin edition of Shelley's
early poems be, though printed in the style of the
Address to the Irish People or the Proposals for an
Association. It would have contained one poem at
least, which I think the world would not willingly let
die — a poem by Shelley on Robert Emmett ! That
might indeed have been the " imperishable monument'-'
which Southey, with almost incredible vainglory, had
considered his own to be.

In a subsequent letter, also unpublished, written after
his alleged disgust with Irish politics, Shelley says : —
tc I have written some verses on Robert Emmett
which you shall see, and which I will insert in my
book of poems/'' I am sorry to say that the corre-
spondence from which we learn this interesting fact
does not contain the poem. The reference to the
Dublin edition of Paine's works is also curious, par-
ticularly if it be true that they were ever posted on
the walls of that city. Shelley may have alluded only
to his own Declaration of Rights, which was printed at
Dublin, expressly to be c: posted on the farmers' walls."
I do not remember having seen a Dublin edition of
Paine's works, but I have no doubt they were printed
there, as I have in my own possession a Dublin edition
of The Life of Thomas Pain, by Francis Oldys, A.M.,
1 79 1.* The number of booksellers who took a share

* THE LIFE OE' THOMAS PAIN, the author of the Eights of
Man, with a Defence of his Writings. By Francis Oldys, A.M.
of the University of Pensylvania. DUBLIN : Printed for R. Cross,
P. Byrne, P. Wogan, A. Grueber, J. Moore, J. Jones, T. Heery,
W. M'Kenzie, W. Jones, E. M'Alliston, and H. Watts. MDCCXCI.

FINAL ESTIMATE OF SOUTHEY. 135

in this publication is in itself a striking proof of the
intellectual and commercial activity of Dublin before
the Union.

After his letter to the " dear friend" at Hurstpier-
point of the 26th of January, and his more elaborate
epistle to Godwin of the 28th, Shelley did not lose
much time in setting out on his adventurous expedi-
tion. The following letter, which is now published
for the first time, details the course of his journey
from Keswick to Dublin. It is most curious and
interesting in many respects. He must be cold
indeed who can read without emotion the sanguine
and exulting expectation of this generous young man,
going forth like a knight of romance to the champion-
ship of a nation. His final estimate of Southey is
also very interesting. It has been said that, even
after their first interview at Keswick, Shelley could
speak of Southey " as a great man/' He must have
changed this opinion very soon, for in one of the un-
published letters so frequently referred to he says the
very reverse. Speaking of Southey, he emphatically
declares, "He is not the great man I first thought him
to be." It was in this latter mood that he penned the
following letter : —

(From an unpublished letter of Shelley.}

" Whitehaven, February 3rd, 1812.
" MY DEAREST FRIEND, —

"We are now at Whitehaven — a miserable
manufacturing sea-port town. I write to you a short
letter to inform you of our safety, and that the wind
which will fill the sails of our packet to-night is favour-
able and fresh. Certainly it is laden with some of
your benedictions as with the breath of the disem-

i36 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

bodied virtues who smile upon our attempt. We set
off to-night at twelve o'clock, and arrive at the Isle of
Man, whence you will hear from us, to-morrow; then
we proceed, when the wind serves, to Dublin. We
may be detained some days in the Island ; if the
weather is fine, we shall not regret it ; at all events
we shall escape this filthy town and horrible inn. . . .
" We felt regret at leaving Keswick. I passed
Southey's house without one sting. He is a man who
may be amiable in his private character, stained and
false as is his public one. He may be amiable, but, if he
is, my feelings are liars, and I have been so long accus-
tomed to trust to them in these cases, that the opinion
of the world is not the likeliest corrector to impeach
their credibility. But we left the Calverts [qy. with
regret] . I hope some day to show you Mrs. Calvert ;
I shall not forget her, but will preserve her memory
as another flower to compose a garland which I intend
to present to you. Harriet and Eliza in excellent
spirits bid you affectionate adieu. Adieu !

« Your

" P. B. SHELLEY."

The phrase " but we left the Calverts/' strengthens,
if it does not confirm, the suggestion already thrown
out, that it was in a part of their house " on the Penrith
road/' as mentioned by De Quincey, that the Shelleys
were living.* The well-known letter of Southey, dated

* I had come to this conclusion before I was favoured by Mr.
Philip H. Howard of Corby Castle with the following exact par-
ticulars :— " The residence of Greta Bank, which in 181 1 was the
property and home of Mr. Calvert, lies on the Keswick and Pen-
rith road to the north side of the beautiful stream and well-wooded
banks of the Greta. It cannot be much more than half a mile
from the town of Keswick. The railroad there running parallel to

MR. AND MRS, CALVERT. 137

January 14th, 1812, describing " a man at Keswick,
who acted upon him as his own ghost would do,"
says this man, or ghost, meaning Shelley, had " mar-
ried a girl of seventeen after being turned out of
doors by his father, and here they are both in lodgings,
living upon 2OO/. a year, which her father allows
them." Harriet was not seventeen, neither was
Shelley turned out of doors. The " zool. a year" from
Mr. Westbrook may be admitted, as we find Shelley,
exactly one month after the date of this letter — on the
1 4th of February, 1812 — stating to Miss Kitchener
that he was then in receipt of " 4001. per annum,"
half of which must have come from his father,
and half from Mr. Westbrook. The other circum-
stance was one that Southey could not be misinformed
about. The Shelleys were " in lodgings," most pro-
bably in the house of one who received them, as De
Quincey says, merely for the opportunity it afforded
of paying them attention. This was Mr. Calvert, the
gentleman who had fascinated Shelley so much at the
Duke of Norfolk's. Mr. Philip H. Howard, of Corby
Castle, the extract from whose mother's journal had
led me to identify the " elderly man" of the dinner
party at Greystoke with Mr. Calvert, confirms that
conjecture in the following interesting passage from
one of his letters : — " It was doubtless Mr. Calvert, of
Greta Bank, near Keswick, who captivated the poet's
fancy; his thoughts were fresh, 'the dew was on

the south side of the river is a good deal nearer to the mansion
than the old coach road. Skiddaw forms a bold background to
the scenery." It is an interesting fact communicated to
Mr. Howard by Mr. Spedding of Mirehouse, Keswick, that there
is a lady still living in that neighbourhood who remembers Shelley's
appearance at this period. " He was very striking looking."

,38 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

them/ The Duke and his friends were very fond
of him; he promoted all local improvements, and
was a person of great vigour and originality of
mind."

Shelley left Whitehaven for the Isle of Man at
midnight on the 3rd of February,, 1812. He seems
to have stopped a few days in the Island, as he said
he would do, and reached Dublin after a stormy
voyage on the night of the i2th. This is twelve days
earlier than any date previously assigned to his ar-
rival. Mr. Hogg knowing nothing about the matter,
took the first letter that came to his hand referring
to the subject, and boldly assigned that as the date.
" A letter from Dublin of the 24th of February states
that they have just arrived there" (vol. ii. p. 76).
The letter, which was to Godwin, in reality states no
such thing. It mentions the delay of " a few days/'
during which period the first of his pamphlets, which
he encloses, had been printed. Yet this erroneous
date is repeated even by Mr. Rossetti. " Shelley
arrived in Dublin, with Harriet and Eliza, about the
24th of February, 1812." Mr. E/ossetti had not be-
fore him, and probably had never seen, the first
pamphlet printed by Shelley in Dublin, but Mr.
Hogg professes to describe it in the very page in
which he gives this random guess at a date. That
pamphlet in which Shelley says he was then " a week
in Dublin/' is dated " No. 7, Lower Sackville Street,
Feb. 22," that is, two days, and a week at least, ac-
cording to Mr. Hogg's showing, before Shelley had
actually arrived there. Even the name of his friend
Mr. Hogg could not transcribe correctly from the
title page of the second pamphlet. Quoting it in in-
verted commas he writes, " By Percy B. Shelly :

SHELLETS ARRIVAL IN DUBLIN. 139

Dublin," whereas the name is printed in full cor-
rectly, as in the first pamphlet, " Percy Bysshe
Shelley." The false spelling of Shelley's name in
this instance is also repeated by Mr. Rossetti through
that over-confidence in Mr. Hogg's assertions, which
seems strange in so acute a writer. Shelley's first
letter from Dublin puts an end to all doubt as to the
exact date of his arrival. It is very short, and is here
printed for the first time : —

(Unpublished letter of Shelley.)

"Dublin, February I3th, 1812.
" MY DEAREST FRIEND, —

" Last night we arrived safe in this city. It
was useless to have written to you before. Now I have
only time to tell you of our safety. We were driven
by a storm quite to the north of Ireland, and yester-
day was the end of our journey thence. Expect to
hear soon ; all is well.

"Your affectionate

" P. B. SHELLEY.
" Direct to me at Mr. Dunne's,

No. 7, Sackville Street, Dublin."

Remembering the bitterness with which he had
parted from Southey at Keswick, it seems a sort of
retribution that Shelley should have experienced the
same unfavourable weather in crossing the Channel
that had attended the visit of the elder poet to
Ireland eleven years before. A storm " drove him to
th' Hibernian shore/' as it had done Southey, and
drove both considerably out of their way in the same
direction. Southey in a letter to his wife, dated
October i4th, 1801, makes the curious mistake of saying

I4o PERCY E YSSHE SHELLEY.

that " the wind had drifted them so far south that no
possibility existed of their reaching Dublin that night/'
the fact being that, like Shelley, he had been driven
to the north of Dublin. " The captain/' says Southey,
" a good man and a good sailor, who never leaves his
deck, and drinks nothing but buttermilk, therefore
readily agreed to land us at Balbriggan, and there we
got ashore at two o'clock. Balbriggan is a fishing
and bathing town fifteen miles from Dublin, but miles
and money differ in Ireland from the English standard,
eleven miles being as long as fourteen English."
Southey must have thought the points of the compass
were differently arranged in Ireland also, when he
placed Balbriggan fifteen miles to the south of Dublin.

The fifteen miles which Southey crossed in his way
to the metropolis of Ireland were so bare of trees that
he could only account for it by the supposition that
they had all been cut down for pike-handles. The
tract, however, unlike that between Dan and
Beersheba, was not all barren. " One little town
we passed, once famous, — its name Swords : it has the
ruins of a castle, and a church with a round tower
adjoining the steeple, making an odd group." As he
approached Glasnevin, the home of Addison, Tickell,
and Delany, as well as the occasional visiting place
of Swift, he saw tf mountains near Dublin most
beautifully shaped." Even Dublin itself came up to
his expectations. He calls it " a very fine city — a
magnificent city — such public buildings, and the streets
so wide V

It was in the widest of those wide streets that
Shelley took up his residence in Dublin. Sackville
Street in 1812 did not present precisely the same
appearance which is now so familiar to us, either from

SACKVILLE STREET, DUBLIN. 141

actual knowledge or through photographs. The
column to Nelson was only in process of erection,
and the fine edifice of the Post- Office had not been
commenced ; but the effect of the view was equally
good, perhaps even better, than it is at present, as but
one majestic avenue seemed to unite the historic
circle of the Rotunda, where the Volunteers had often
assembled, with that beautiful building in which the
patriotic resolutions of Dungannon had been confirmed
by the Parliament of Ireland. Both of these struc-
tures must have been objects of great interest to
Shelley, and we shall find subsequently in what terms
he spoke of the then actual condition of the latter.
The house in which he lived was very favourably
situated ; from the balcony of it, which still remains,
and from which, as he tells us himself, he was accus-
tomed to fling copies of his pamphlet to whoever
appeared to him to be likely recipients, he could see
over the roofs of Trinity College and the Bank of
Ireland, some of those ' ' beautifully shaped mountains "
which had attracted the attention of Southey. But
six houses separated him from the river :

" There was the Liffy rolling downe the lea."

And by his side at that time was one to whom with
truth could be applied the lines of Tickell. For surely,
notwithstanding all the native beauty that had been
mirrored in its wave, never before

" Did Liffy's limpid stream
Reflect a sweeter face."

These allusions may be pardoned in one to whom that
street is very dear, who was born in it, who spent
the best part of his life close to it, and to whom the

I42 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

residence of Shelley therein gave an additional and an
enduring charm.*

We have already given the short note which
Shelley addressed to his friend at Hurstpierpoint the
day after his arrival in Dublin. On the following day
he again addressed the same lady in a long and
somewhat extravagant epistle. It has, however, a
many-sided interest, and I am permitted to make
some extracts from it which have not been printed.

(From an unpublished letter of Shelley.}

" Dublin, 7, Sackville Street, Feb. I4th, 1812.
" Mr. Dunne's, Woollen Draper.

" .... At length, however, you are free from
anxiety for our safety, as here we have nothing to
apprehend but Government, which will not, assure
yourself,' dare to be so barefacedly oppressive as to
attack my Address ; it will breathe the spirit of peace,

* On the 1 5th of August, 1835, I saw another famous poet
enter the house No. 7, Lower Sackville Street, which then belonged
to Messrs. Kohler & Co., who had succeeded Mr. Dunne. It was
Thomas Moore. I recognised him in Sackville Street in company
with a well-known vocalist of that day, Mr. Morrisson. They
entered the house on some business, and came out in a few minutes.
They proceeded to the theatre in Hawkins Street, and afterwards
to Trinity College. Moore's morning visit to the theatre is ex-
plained by the following entry in his diary : — " The playbill of
to-day and yesterday having announced the entertainments of this
evening to have been selected by me, &c. &c., went to look at the
box-book to see what sort of promise it gave " (Memoirs, vol: vii.
p. 102). On that evening I attended the theatre, and had the
pleasure of hearing Moore address the house in acknowledgment of
his enthusiastic reception. He spoke from the third box to the right
facing the stage, in which sat his sister Ellen with some Dublin
friends. The speech, which is very slightly alluded to by Moore,
is given in full by Mr. James Burke, A.B., in his Memoir of
Thomas Moore (Dublin, 1852), p. 168.

LETTER TO MISS KITCHENER. 143

toleration, and patience. ... As my name, which
will be prefixed to the Address, will show that my
deeds are not deeds of darkness, nor my counsels
things of mystery and fear." " Dread nothing for
me ; the course of my conduct in Ireland (as shall the
entire course of my life) shall be marked by openness
and sincerity."

The importance which he attached to the junction
of his correspondent, even as a political ally, is shown
by the following and some succeeding passages : —

" We will meet you in Wales, and never part again.
You shall not cross the Channel alone. It will not
do. In compliance with Harriet's earnest solicita-
tions, I entreated you instantly to come and join our
circle, resign your school, all, everything for .us and
the Irish cause. This could not be done. . . . But
summer will come. The ocean rolls between us. O
thou ocean, whose multitudinous billows ever wash
Erin's green isle, on whose shores this venturous arm
would plant the flag of liberty, roll on ! and with each
wave," &c.

A great many romantic apostrophes to the ocean,
to Ireland, and to his correspondent here follow.
The same feelings and the same hopes found expression
in verse, of which some fragments have been pre-
served. The following may be given as an example : —

To IEELAND.

Bear witness, Erin! when thine injured isle,
Sees summer on its verdant pastures smile,
Its cornfields waving in the winds that sweep
The billowy surface of thy circling deep.
Thou tree whose shadow o'er the Atlantic gave
Peace, wealth, and beauty to its friendly wave,

j 44 PERC Y B YS8HE SHELLEY.

.... its blossoms fade ;
And blighted are the leaves that cast its shade ;
Whilst the cold hand gathers its scanty fruit,
Whose chillness struck a canker to its root.
Dublin, February, 1812.

The personal allusions in the remarkable letter from
which these lines are taken are still more interesting: —

" I ought to count myself a favoured mortal/' says
Shelley, " with such a wife and friend" ....

" Your dear little Americans may come and live
with us. (Suppose there was a little stranger to play
with them.) This, however, is a hope which I do not
anticipate but at some distance/'' ....

" 400/. per annum will be quite enough for us all.
Our publications would supply the deficiency." ....

" Have you heard a new Republic is set up in
Mexico ?"

He then introduces the following lines, which,
though printed in Mr. Rossettr's edition, as are the
preceding (vol. ii. pp. 528, 529), may here be given: —

THE MEXICAN REVOLUTION.
i.

Brothers ! between you and me

Whirlwinds sweep and billows roar ;

Yet in spirit oft I see

On thy wild and winding shore

Freedom's bloodless banners wave, —

Feel the pulses of the brave

Unextinguished in the grave, —

See them drenched in sacred gore, —

Catch the warrior's gasping breath,

Murmuring " Liberty or death !"

II.
Shout aloud ! Let every slave,

Crouching at corruption's throne,
Start into a man, and brave

Racks and chains without a groan ;

LINES ON THE MEXICAN REVOLUTION. 14$

And the castle's heartless glow,

And the hovel's vice and woe,

Fade like gaudy flowers that blow —

Weeds that peep, and then are gone ;
Whilst from misery's ashes risen,
Love shall burst the captive's prison.

in.

Cotopaxi ! bid the sound

Through thy sister mountains ring,

Till each valley smile around
At the blissful welcoming !

And 0 thou stern Ocean deep,

Thou whose foamy billows sweep

Shores where thousands wake to weep
Whilst they curse a villain king ;

On the winds that fan thy breast

Bear thou news of Freedom's rest !

IV.

Ere the daystar dawn of love,

Where the flag of war unfurled
Floats with crimson stain above

The fabric of a ruined world —
Never but to vengeance driven
When the patriot's spirit shriven
Seeks in death its native heaven !

Then to desolation hurled,
Widowed love may watch thy bier,
Balm thee with its dying tear.

Dublin, 14^ February, 1812.

After this impassioned invocation, in which we may
already perceive the advancing power of the poet, he
reverts to the great business of his expedition and to
his forthcoming pamphlet.

" My Address will soon come out ; it will be in-
stantly followed by another with downright proposals
for instituting associations for bettering the condition
of human kind; at all events, we will have a

L

,46 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

debating society, and see what will come out of

that." ....

" Godwin has introduced me to Curran; I took
the letter this morning. He was not at home. I
shall see him soon." ....

Before adverting to this introduction, which Curran
was very slow in acknowledging, we must conclude
our extracts from this long and remarkable letter of
the I4th of February, 1812. The following paragraph,
though written in all seriousness, has a quiet though
unconscious touch of humour about it. He tells his
correspondent that Eliza Westbrook was going to
collect the " useful passages " out of Tom Paine' s
works and publish them, and then adds the rather in-
consequential piece of information from which we are
glad to learn that the good Eliza was at the moment
more " usefully " employed. " She is now making a
red cloak which will be finished before dinner." ....
' ' Harriet sends her love. Eliza longs to see you/' ....

The postscript is by Harriet.

" MY DEAR FRIEND, — I have not yet answered your
kind letters, but depend upon it I shall very soon ;
they are not lost upon me I assure you. In the mean-
time believe me,

"Your affectionate friend,

"H. S."

At the commencement of this long letter, hitherto
unpublished, from which we have taken the foregoing
interesting extracts, Shelley expressed a confident
expectation that the Government would not interfere
with his Address. On this subject he was a true
prophet. In the Record Office I have examined all
the State Papers of the Irish Government referring to

TEE STATE PAPERS OF 1812. 147

this period, and while many important documents
have been discovered referring to the political
action of the Catholics in preparing for the great
meeting of the 28th of February, which had
been publicly announced, there is no reference
whatever to the eloquent pamphlets which Shelley
had printed, and one of which he had circulated
before that day. The Government, as may be seen
from the letter of the Duke of Richmond there pre-
served, seemed disposed at first to prohibit the
holding of this meeting. Wiser counsels however
prevailed, and the meeting took place. Special agents,
as might be expected, were sent by the Government
to give a private report of the proceedings, and their
resume of what took place is preserved among the
State Papers. It is curious that although Shelley
spoke at this meeting for more than an hour, and
produced the extraordinary effect which will be de-
scribed farther on by " an Englishman/' who was an
eye-witness of the scene, one of the Government
reporters does not mention him at all, while the
other merely describes him as "Mr. Shelly, who
stated himself to be a native of England/' Shelley
himself was not prepared for this indifference on the
part of the Government. He expected that the suspen-
sion of the Habeas Corpus Act at least would have
shown the alarm which his pamphlets had inspired. To
this possibility he refers in an unpublished letter from
Radnorshire immediately after leaving Ireland. Harriet
also alludes to it with some appearance of alarm in a
most interesting letter, a copy of which I have dis-
covered in the Record Office, and which will be given
subsequently in full. His youthful appearance may
have had something to do with this careksiness on the

L 2

I48 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

part of the Government. He admits that it interfered
with the effect of his teaching on the public. " My
youth is much against me here/' he says, in an
unpublished letter, which will presently be given
almost entire. " To improve on this advantage" he
continues, " the servant gave out I was only fifteen
years of age." The servant here alluded to was Daniel
Hill, the hero of Barnstaple and Tanyrallt, of whom we
shall have much more to say. Whatever may have been
the cause of the inaction of the Irish Government, it is
certainly strange that the same documents which
excited so much alarm when discovered at Holyhead
and Barnstaple as to lead to a remarkable corre-
spondence with Ministers of State and the highest
functionaries of the Post Office, attracted no official
notice in Dublin, though sent gratuitously to sixty
public-houses, and flung openly from the windows of
the author's lodgings in the chief street of that
capital.

It will be seen from Shelley's letter of the I4th of
February that he had lost no time in presenting him-
self with Godwin's introduction at the house of the
Right Hon. John Philpot Curran, the Master of the
Holls. Mr. Curran was then residing in the fine mansion
on the south side of St. Stephen's Green, the same
house which was subsequently occupied by the emi-
nent lawyer and judge Mr. Burton. On Judge
Burton's death, the late Sir Benjamin Guinness, the
restorer of St. Patrick's Cathedral, purchased the
house for his town residence, and erected shortly
before his own demise the new and imposing front
and portico by which it is now easily recognised. In
1811 Mr. Curran had been residing in Harcourt
Street, and in 1807 in Ely Place, to which the only

CURRAN AND GODWIN. 149

letter of Godwin's to him which has been preserved
was directed. This letter, the original of which has
been kindly presented to me by a friend, and which
has not been published, will be found a little further
on.*

Considering the friendship which had long existed
between Curran and Godwin, it seems rather strange
that the Master of the Rolls should have taken no
notice whatever, for a considerable time, of the young
reformer who had been introduced to him by the
author of St. Leon. He seems studiously to have
kept out of his way, and Shelley did not succeed even
in seeing him until some time after the i8th of
March — a period of at least five or six weeks. God-
win had some misgivings as to the reception Shelley
possibly might meet with ; for before the latter had
made any complaint of inattention, he wrote to him
in the following words : — " How did you manage with
Curran ? I hope you have seen him. I should not
wonder, however, if your pamphlet has frightened him.
You should have left my letter with your card the first
time you called, and then it was his business to have
sought you" (Letter of March 4th, 1812. Hogg's
Life of Shelley, vol. ii. p. 89). But this is precisely
what Shelley had done ten days before his pamphlet
was printed ; and in those ten days it is plain that
Curran had not thought it his business to walk over
to Sackville Street to seek Shelley. The Address to
the Irish People was first announced for publication on
Tuesday, February 25th, 1812. In The Dublin Evening
Post of that day is the following advertisement : —

* I am indebted to my friend W. J. Fitzpatriek, Esq., J.P., of
Kilmacud Manor, Stillorgan, for this very interesting document.

I5o PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

" This day is published, price Fivepence, to be had of all

the Booksellers,

AN ADDRESS TO THE IRISH PEOPLE.
By PERCY B. SHELLEY.

" ADVERTISEMENT. — The lowest possible price is set on this
publication, because it is the intention of the Author to awaken in
the minds of the Irish poor a knowledge of their real state, sum-
marily pointing out the evils of that state, and suggesting rational
means of remedy. — Catholic Emancipation, and a Repeal of the
Union Act (the latter the most successful engine that England
ever wielded over the misery of fallen Ireland) being treated of in
the following Address, as grievances which unanimity and resolution
may remove, and associations conducted with peaceable firmness,
being earnestly recommended as means for embodying that unani-
mity and firmness which must finally be successful."

The same advertisement appears in The Dublin
Evening Post of Saturday, February 29th, which also
contains the outline of Shelley's speech delivered at
the meeting of the day before. It is given for the
last time in The Evening Post of March 3rd, 1812. Of
the second pamphlet — The Proposals — I have not been
able to discover an advertisement.

The Address to the Irish People seems to have left
the printer's hands on Monday, the 24th of February,
twelve days after Shelley's arrival in Dublin. On that
day he wrote to Godwin as follows : — " A most
tedious journey by sea and land has brought us to
our destination. I have delayed a few days informing
you of it, because I enclose with this a little pamphlet
which I have just printed, and thereby save a double
expense. I have wilfully vulgarized the language of
this pamphlet, in order to reduce the remarks it con-
tains to the taste and comprehension of the Irish
peasantry, who have been too long brutalized by vice
and ignorance. I conceive that the benevolent passions
of their breasts are in some degree excited, and indi-

SHELLETS VOYAGE TO DUBLIN. 151

vidual interests in some degree generalized by Catholic
disqualifications and the oppressive influence of the
Union Act, that some degree of indignation has arisen
at the conduct of the Prince Regent, which might
tend to blind insurrections. A crisis like this ought
not to be permitted to pass unoccupied or unimproved.
I have another pamphlet in the press, earnestly recom-
mending to a different class the institution of a
philanthropic society. No unnatural unanimity can
take place if secessions of the minority on any ques-
tion are invariably made. It might segregate into
twenty different societies, each coinciding generically,
though differing specifically.

" We have had a most tedious voyage. We were
driven by a storm completely to the north of Ireland
in our passage from the Isle of Man. Harriet, my
wife, and Eliza, my sister-in-law, were very much
fatigued after twenty-eight hours' tossing in a galliot
during a violent gale. They are now tolerably re-
covered. I am exceedingly obliged by your letter of
introduction to Mr. Curran. His speeches had in-
terested me before I had any idea of coming to Ireland.
It seems that he was the only man who would engage
in behalf of the prisoners during the times of horror
of the Rebellions. I have called upon him twice, but
have not found him at home." — Hogg, vol. ii. pp.

77, 78.

The allusion at the beginning of this letter to " a
tedious journey by sea and land" as well as the period
of the sea- voyage itself, " twenty-eight hours/' lead us
to the conclusion that Shelley, like Southey, had
landed at some northern sea-port, and had thence
proceeded by coach to Dublin. In this way he must
have passed through Swords and the scenery described
by Southey.

j 5 2 PERCY B 7SSHE SHELLE Y.

Godwin was not the first to whom Shelley sent a
specimen of his pamphlet. There is in existence a
sheet or page of a Dublin newspaper called The Corre-
spondent) on which is written by Shelley the following
unpublished note : — " I send you the first sheet of my
first Address as it comes out. The style of this, you
will perceive, is adapted to the lowest comprehension
that can read. It will be followed by another in my
own natural style, though in the same strain. This
one will make about thirty such pages as the
enclosed : the other as much. Expect to hear soon.
Happiness be with you. My dear friend, yours "

The first sheet of the pamphlet was enclosed in this
page of The Correspondent) on which the foregoing was
written. It was evidently the wrapper which came
from the printer, and is directed on one of the margins
" Mr. Percy Shelley." As in the case of the copy of
the pamphlet sent to Godwin, both were forwarded as
newspapers, and charged by the vigilant post-masters
according to their weight as letters. Godwin was the
greater sufferer, as the whole of the pamphlet was
included in his package. It must be admitted that
he bore his misfortune with good humour. The fol-
lowing allusion to the subject in his reply to Shelley
is amusing : —

" To descend from great things to small, I can per-
ceive that you are already infected with the air of that
country."* Your letter, with its enclosures, cost me

* According to Mr. Charles Phillips, Godwin had himself visited
Ireland as the guest of Mr. Curran. " Godwin had gone on a
visit to the Priory " [Curran's residence near Stillorgan, Co. Dublin],
" where he had at once an opportunity of enjoying the society of
his friend and of studying the manners of a new people." (Recol-
lections of Curran, p. 233.) As Godwin is reported to have

FIRST PAMPHLET SENT THROUGH THE POST OFFICE. 153

by post il. is. 8d.; and you say in it that ' you send
it in this way to save expense/ The post always
charges parcels that exceed a sheet or two by weight,
and they should therefore always be forwarded by some
other conveyance." — Hogg, vol. ii. p. 90.

In Shelley's rejoinder to this letter, of the 8th of
March, he endeavours to console the philosopher by
the following explanation : — " I had no conception
that the packet I sent you would be sent by the
post ; I thought it would have reached you per coach."
— Hogg, vol. ii. p. 95.

It appears that there were three victims to this
rather expensive mode of anticipating the book-post —
Mr. Westbrook, Miss Kitchener, and Mr. Godwin.
In the copy of the letter of Harriet preserved in the
State Paper Office is the following passage : —

" I sent you two letters in a newspaper, which I
hope you received safe from the intrusion of the post-
masters. I sent one of the pamphlets to my father in a
newspaper, which was opened and charged, but which
was very trifling to what you and Godwin paid." — Copy
of Harriet's Letter in the Record Office.

This letter of Harriet, though not directed, was
written to Miss Kitchener under the name of
" Portia, " and was a part of the seizure made at
Holyhead on the 3oth of March, 1812, as will be
fully described in a subsequent page. Harriet's letter is
dated March i8th, but ten days earlier Shelley himself

heard one of Curran's great oratorical displays, and to have
admired nothing but " the manner " of the orator, the visit must
have been paid before 1806, when Curran became Master of the
Eolls. The story told by Mr. Phillips is rather apocryphal, but
the fact of the visit may be received, although Mr. William Henry
Curran makes no mention of it in the Life of his father.

154 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

had referred to the mistake of sending the first sheet
of the pamphlet as a newspaper, in the following
passage of an unpublished letter to Miss Kitchener.
Writing on March i oth, he says : " In a day or two I
shall make up a parcel to you, which will come per
coach. It is a terrible mistake that of the last ; the
blundering honest Irishman we have came without
it." Here a scapegoat had been found in the person
of Daniel Hill already referred to, and who thus makes
his second appearance in Shelley an story.

Shelley was evidently a little annoyed at the
inattention of Curran, though he makes no direct
complaint of it to Godwin. In an unpublished letter
of the 27th of February, 1812, he says : —

" I have not yet seen Curran. I do not like him
for accepting the office of Master of the Rolls."

One would think from Shelley's remark that Curran
had accepted the office of Master of the Rolls in the
interval between the date of his own calling at his
house on the 14th of February and the 27th of the
same month, when he wrote as above to Miss
Hitchener. But Curran had been Master of the Rolls
since 1806. The opinion expressed by Shelley was
evidently formed from conversations which he had in
Dublin with persons who agreed with Lord Cloncurry
in thinking that Currants acceptance of office was a
somewhat lowering of the position which he had held
in the estimation of his countrymen.* There can be
very little doubt who some of those Dublin friends of
Shelley were, as will presently be pointed out.

* Personal Recollections of Valentine, Lord Cloncurry,
pp. 169, 170.

CHAPTER VIII.

'T'HE letter of introduction to Curran which Shelley
received from Godwin has not been preserved.
Indeed it is remarkable that so few of the letters,
either written by Curran or addressed to him, have
been published. This renders the following letter the
more interesting, and it may perhaps serve as a sub-
stitute for that which Shelley presented to Curran
from Godwin. It is rendered still more interesting
by the unexpected and unintended explanations of
some of its allusions which I found in the Record
Office. As a letter written by Godwin to Curran, it
is in itself a document worth preserving, and may not
be considered wholly irrelevant to the subject in
hand.

Unpublished Letter of Godwin to Curran.

" The Right Honourable the Master of the Rolls,
Ely Place, Dublin.

Soraers Town, London, March 7th, 1807.

" DEAR CURRAN, — When last in England, you made
me two promises shall I say ? No, neither of them
was absolutely a promise, but both very interesting to
me. One had the word March, with which it was
connected in tenour, and the other the word Spring.

" I am very desirous of seeing you in March, and
that not only for the immediate pleasure it would give
me, but as connected with your visits of September

, 56 PERCY B YSSHE SHELLEY.

and December last, it would be a pledge of the
frequency with which I might hope to see you ; I
should then think of you as a neighbour ; I should
feel as if forty and not four hundred miles was the
distance that separated us. But alas ! this is the 7th
of March. I look in my almanac, and find that
Easter Term (curse on the technical phraseology !)
begins April J5th; I ruminate on human frailty, and
begin to suspect both that you are not Jupiter, and
that you have not sworn by Styx that you will come.
" The other subject I allude to, I am sorry to say,
is of a sordid and mercenary cast, such an one as we
shall not be obliged to think on, if ever we meet
hereafter in Utopia or Elysium. What you said of it
was not a promise; yet as it first occurred in
September, and was reconsidered at Christmas, I have
been compelled to rely upon it with some sanguineness
of hope, and, sordid and mercenary as it is, it is neces-
sary I should own that it is intimately connected witK
the existence of myself and my family. My com-
mercial affairs are going on with sufficient prosperity
of promise. The Fables, as you know, have been
printed twice ; the Pantheon is much in request ; the
little History of England, which at first seemed to be
hardly noticed, I am now obliged instantly to send
again to the press, and the Shakspeare Tales I am
presse to bring out separately in twenty parts (three
are already finished), in which form I have reason to
think I shall sell ten or twenty thousand copies. Yet
amid all this plentifulness of prospect, I suffer a consi-
derable degree of famine of means. Great disburse-
ments are necessary, and you, who (happy, thrice
happy man !) were never entangled in affairs of com-
merce, can have no idea of the unconscionable credit

UNPUBLISHED LETTER OF GODWIN TO CURRAN. 157

which traders in this commercial country demand and
must obtain. My books of course are principally sold
to the booksellers, by whom they are distributed
through the town and the empire ; and they will only
settle with the dealer once a year, at Christmas,, when
their accounts are liquidated by bills at three, six, and
nine months after date. My demands against them for
last Christmas were comparatively small, being at most
solely for the two volumes of Fables, and it is therefore
impossible that I should find myself entirely at my
ease till Christmas next. I can indeed, and shall make
a forced sale of some of my books for an earlier pay-
ment, but that can only be to a small limited amount.
If I were to exceed that, I should part with them
almost for waste paper. I should have laboured, and
other men would enter into the fruits of my labour.
Thus circumstanced, it cannot be but that I shall have
to struggle with great difficulties, and to encounter
great anxieties during the present year; but this I
shall meet with the utmost chearfulness,* if ease and
competence and peace seem likely to be the final
result.

" Having thus, my dear friend, [laid the state of my
position] before you, the first thing I have [to hope is
that you whom I relied entirely] on would not hold
me in suspense, [as I have pay]ments to make on the

* " Chearfulness." — This old-fashioned mode of spelling the
word was nearly extinct in Godwin's time. It is so written in a
letter from John Wilkes, dated Naples, May 25th, 1765. Eeferring
to Churchill, he says — " I have a present from Rome of a
sepulchral urn of alabaster, which I am going to inscribe to my
friend in his three great characters— a chearful companion, a
bitter satirist, and a true patriot." — See Notes and Queries, 4th
S. v. p. 48, January 8th, 1870.

J58 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

2nd and following days [of June ?] to the amount of
3<X)/. ;* and though I have not, and very probably
cannot find any adequate resources independently of
the hopes you have given me, yet the greatest calamity
that could happen to me would be to be kept to the
last moment in vain expectation.

" I have seen Lord Lauderdale twice somewhat in
the way of a message from Lord Holland. What will
come of it I am unable to say.

"I have just seen an account in a newspaper of
your having been taken ill in court, Feb. 26th. I hope
by the time this reaches you, you will just have forgotten
the circumstance.

" I am, my dear Curran,

"With the sincerest regard and affection,
" Yours,

"W. GODWIN.

"Mrs. Godwin begs me to add a line to say how
truly she joins in remembrance/''

Few authors, except those who, to use the language
of Lord Byron as applied to his friend Hobhouse,
aim at " foaming into patriots to subside in Newgate,"
can expect that their works should undergo a critical
examination in the office of a Minister of State. Had
there been a Minister of Instruction, as in France, the
subject of the following paper would come legitimately
under his notice; but to add to the many labours
of the Secretary for the Home Department, the task

* Godwin had commenced writing another figure, I think 400^.,
which he changed to 300. The upright stroke of 4 makes the
figure 3 look like 8, but that appears to he too large a sum to ask
Jiis friend, who was only one year on the Bench, to advance him.

VISCOUNT SIDMOUTH. 159

of discovering the hidden and perhaps dangerous
meaning that may underlie the impenetrable pro-
fundity of this poet or of that proser, might deter
the most courageous from assuming the dignity and
undertaking the responsibilities of office. The Secre-
tary of State for the Home Department in 1813 was
Viscount Sidmouth, whose head in 1820 narrowly
escaped the honour of being put into a special bag
with Lord Castlereagh's by the Cato Street con-
spirators. He had another escape of a less tragic
kind two years earlier. At the earnest solicitation,
as it would seem, of Lady Donegal, he was left out of
The Fudge Family. Moore at first seemed reluctant
to yield the point. Alluding to a lady he had
spared, at his friend's request, the satirist proceeds,
" She is, however, safe, though it has already cost
me the strangling of two or three young epigrams
in their cradle. All, in fact, shall be safe, except
Lord Sidmouth ; but that the author of the Circular,
the patron of spies and informers, the father
of the Green Bag, the eulogist of the Knights of
Northampton (?), &c. &c., should not have a touch or
two, is out of the nature of things. I only promise
that he shall neither be called ' Doctor/ nor ' Old
Woman/ which is quite as much as his warmest
friends could expect/' — Moore to Lady Donegal,
Jan. pth, 1818. Moore's Memoirs, vol. ii. 131.

The friendly mantle, however, of Lady Donegal
protected the noble Viscount, as he does not figure in
The Fudge Family, or in any of Moore's satirical poems.
Shelley was made of sterner stuff. The rather in-
effective statesman whom Moore spared and Thistle-
wood had not the opportunity of decapitating, the
author of the Masque of Anarchy represented, only in

, Co PERCY B YSSIIE SHELLEY.

metaphor it must be admitted, as riding tf on a
crocodile."

Clothed with the Bible RB with light
And the shadow of the night,
Like Sidmoutll next, Hypocrisy
On a crocodile came by.

The Masque of Anarchy, st. vi.

For figuring so conspicuously in the Masque of
Shadows, which passed before the mind of the dreaming
poet as he " lay asleep in Italy/' Lord Sidmouth would
probably have forgiven the charge of hypocrisy. It is
scarcely necessary to say that any who professed to
believe in Christianity must have been a hypocrite in
Shelley's estimation. One who knew Lord Sidmouth'g
private character thus speaks of him : " We were also
at that poor dear honest man's, Lord Sidrnouth's, for a
few days. As to your wicked story of his getting
drunk and singing ballads with his royal master, there
is not a word of truth in it ; it would be much more
like him in his cups to give him a high-flown dis-
course upon all the cardinal virtues and Christian
graces. Seriously, I believe him to be as honest, as
frank, and as open a character, as free from all little
meannesses as any man in the whole world/' — Mian God-
frey to Moore, Feb. i8j6. Moore'* Memoir*, vol. ii. 95.

This character of Lord Sid month, however, renders
it the more remarkable that he took no notice of the
following State Paper which endeavours to prove the
insidious artifice of Godwin in disseminating his
peculiar views under the harmless appearance of
children's books. The writer of the paper, whose
name is not given, probably calculated on the popular
estimate of Lord Sidmouth's religious principles for
his taking a special interest in the subject. In this

-.-. .// \r\iit

he \v:is miNlaken. \Yhelher Lord Si.lniiuil !i uoiild
li;i\r preferred hi " drink ll|i M.sil, r;il a en ,• . ., 1 1 le , " or
ride one, r;illirr lli.m r<ad ( ,< M I \\ i n 's .Inn iiil< I .iln'tinj ,
ramiul In- laled \\ilh ahsulnle eerl.imlN , hill, Ilial he
did IK. I (In NU IN plain from the only e I id- .1 , 1 1 u 1 1 1
\vliirh :i|»|n-:irs nil NIC l»;i«-K of till) following i . in ;. i I. .1 1)1.
dnriimrnl , (lie hrit-f l)iil NI^III li.-;i n I \\(.rd " ml." Tin-
|»ji|)cr is hi In- found in !li< LY.i.id ( Ulirr : " h..nn In,
(i(o. III., i-HJ. Juinuiry l,o Mun-li. No. aiy."

" A \-V\\\ l'\l( I K 'II I, A KM «'ON( KHNINU (JOIIWIN'N .1 U V K N I I,K

LiMUAitv WHICH muaiT TO HI-: MAIH-: JIKN KHAI.I.V

KNOWN.

" (Jodwiii'M Lil.c;i.ry \VUM rnrrinl on for MOIIIC l,ini(5
ill ll;muay Yard. <)\lonl Slxrl, wil.lioiil any name
cilli.-r al NIC :Jio|, (,r on Mir N.-yrral puMira.! IHIIM pull
liwlird for il,. The lm.siiU'NH IIUH hincr IK in K movi d lo
SkiniM r Sh.rl.l Snow Hill, lor MM las! llnvr or I'onr
years; for noun- lime nKo il, w;is railed (lie Jnv.nde
Lilirary ; no name a|>pe;in d.

" Al, len;-lli Mr. ,1. (iodvvinl was vvnlhn on l.lie
ilour |.o I in very -.imill lell.ri'H; wiLlliti u Very 1'rxv
monllis il, appeared lioldly ill lar^e l< Her. over I In-
door ; I ill it, in very liMle known l,lia.l, tin propiH lot

* CUM;. ii, 111 :i l«-1.l.«-r In |ji-i«n;u<l AlarNnlly, ^iv<-;' I In

<l (io.lwin'i-., .\i, Sliii.iirrSi.ir.-i,, Lnii.l.ii.."— Lift qf Gurran, by hi*

HUM, vol. ii. p. 172.

t Tlii ...i.i'i .•;.!.. -l_y I,.- ii,i.-.,.|..i I'M .I'.IIM (io«lwin, an eldar

liniUii-r of Williiii.i, who w;in a IIH-IM|MT ul' l.lm IIIIIIT 'IVnij.lr, mill
«li..| m iMo-; (Nuli-H <nnl (jiKi-n*, ;nlH. i. p. $0.3),
\viil.in:', li«ni I' i.'M |'|.i< , |),, -,;!,, \\',\',i jx-.il. .,1 .1 .l-.liii < i
l.ln-n living. " II, i;i not. Williuni <io<lwin who livi^w in llolhom il,

i ./„/,,!, in» M-|;il.iv«- l.o !.ln- «il.ln-|- " (//'/y/, I l.\\) lii HH

•Ili-y ;-.;iy;-. In-, li.nl wnU.rii lo Willi.iin 'i'l'lwin. Tim
j.liil«i-.«,|,l,<-r i«-j-li<-d lunJly, uii'l luMrcAiMid UlN r.on- pondonl M

,62 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

is Godwin, the author of Political Justice. There
appears to be a regular system through all his publi-
cations to supersede all other elementary books, and
to make his library the resort of preparatory schools,
that in time the principles of democracy and Theo-
philanthropy may take place universally.

" In order to allure schools of a moderate and a
lower class, he holds out the temptation of an allow-
ance of threepence in every shilling for such books as
are published by him. He publishes books with the
name of Edward Baldwin, Esq., which are said to be
his own writing.

" One of these, Baldwins Mythology, has been in-
troduced at the Charter House. It is an insidious
and dangerous publication. The preface is calculated to
mislead well-disposed persons, who may perhaps be too
indolent or misjudging to read through the whole
work ; it professes to exalt the purity and show the
superiority of Christianity over the heathen morality
taught in the Grecian and Roman mythology, and
then through the whole work improperly excites the
curiosity of young persons to read the grossest stories
on the subject, and artfully hints the wisdom of the
morality of the heathen world. The principal works he
has published are a Grecian, a Roman, and an. English
History, all three of the size of Goldsmith's abridg-
ments. In these, every democratic sentiment is printed
in italics that they may not fail to present themselves
to a child's notice, and as a specimen of some ideas
contained in these works the following may be men-
tioned. In the History of Rome, instead of carrying
it down to the destruction of the Empire it leaves off
at the reign of Augustus, and in italics remarks that
it is useless to write the History of the tyrants who

STATE PAPER ON GODWIN IN THE RECORD OFFICE. 163

governed for the remaining 400 years, for when it
ceased to be a Republic it ceased to deserve the name
of History.

"The History of England opens with some extra-
ordinary remarks on the subject of the Druids and
the subsequent introduction of Christianity into the
island. When it arrives at the reign of Elizabeth,
instead of noticing the Reformation it says she was
tinctured with superstition, though in other respects
a woman of abilities ; and the reign of George the
Third is only remarkable for two events — America
declaring her Independence and the Revolution in
France.

" Godwin has also among his list Mylius's English
Dictionary, which has been inadvertently introduced
into Christ's Hospital. It is a pocket dictionary, the
danger of which consists in giving only one meaning to
words which have several, and omitting all such
words as philosophers of the present day do not like
to explain. For example, take the word ' revolu-
tion/ the meaning given is, ' things returning to their
just state/ By their interpretation the Bible is no
longer to be understood The Book, but according to
it there are various bibles, one for every religious sect,
for example, the word ' Koran, the Bible of the
Mahometans/

" The next publication is an abridgment of Home
Tooke's Diversions of Purley, by Haylets, simplified, as
it is pretended, for young people, to the price of
35. 6d., and again reduced to a one shilling publication.
Next, Fables Ancient and Modern, by Baldwin, which
are amplified to four pages for each fable.

" By these different publications it is evident there
is an intention to have every work published for the

M 2

,64 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

Juvenile Library that can be required in the early in-
struction of children, and thus by degrees to give an
opportunity for every principle professed by the
infidels and republicans of these days to be intro-
duced to their notice.

"By such means did Voltaire and his brethren
for twenty years before the Revolution in France
spread infidelity and disloyalty through the remotest
provinces of that country, and we know too well how
they succeeded.

"In the Times' newspaper of this date (17 Feb.
1813) the various juvenile books of Mr. Godwin are
advertised with a positive statement at the head of
the advertisement that they are sanctioned by the
schoolmasters of Christ Hospital and used in that insti-
tution.33

There is no signature to this paper. No action
seems to have been taken upon it. To the last passage,
which is underlined, there is a " N.B." in pencil in the
margin. The only endorsement except the date,
"17 Feb. 1813," is, as I have said, the word "nil."

Retracing our steps after this digression about
Godwin, we resume our narrative of Shelley's pro-
ceedings in Dublin.

Shelley's Address to the Irish People came from the
printer's hand on the 24th of February, 1812. On
that day, as we have seen, he sent an early copy by
post to Godwin. On the following day, the 25th,
the pamphlet was published. The advertisement
which appeared in the Dublin Evening Post of that
date has already been given. We may be sure that
one of the earliest copies presented personally by
Shelley was to the Master of the Rolls. " I have not

SHELLETS LETTER TO HAMILTON ROWAN. 165

seen Mr. Curran," says Shelley, in a letter to Godwin
of the 8th of March. " I have called repeatedly, left
my address and my pamphlet. I will see him before
I leave Dublin." On the day of publication he sent
a copy of the Address to the Irish People to Hamilton
Rowan, with the following letter : —

"7, Lower Sackville Street, Feb. 2jth, 1812.

" Sir, — Although I have not the pleasure of being
personally known to you, I consider the motives which
actuated me in writing the inclosed sufficiently intro-
ductory to authorize me in sending you some copies,
and waiving ceremonials in a case where public
benefit is concerned. Sir, although an Englishman,
I feel for Ireland; and I have left the country in
which the chance of birth placed me for the sole
purpose of adding my little stock of usefulness to the
fund which I hope that Ireland possesses to aid me in
the unequal yet sacred combat in which she is
engaged. In the course of a few days more I shall
print another small pamphlet, which shall be sent to
you. I have intentionally vulgarized the language of
the enclosed. I have printed 1500 copies, and am
now distributing them throughout Dublin.

" Sir, with respect,

" I am your obedient humble servant,

" P. B. SHELLEY."

Mr. Middleton, in his work called Shelley and his
Writings, referring to this subject, says, " Dr. Drum-
mond tells us that ' Shelley selected Ireland as a
theatre the widest and fairest for the operations of
the determined friends of political and religious free-
dom' (vol. i. p. 210), and adds in a note, ( See Life of

!66 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

Hamilton Rowan/ " It is quite .evident that this
gentleman did not consult the work from which he
professes to quote. The observation about selecting
Ireland is not Dr. Drummond' s but Shelley's, and is to
be found in the postscript to his first pamphlet. No
one who had Dr. Drummond' s book before him could
fall into this mistake. He says, " In February, 1812,
the celebrated poet Percy Bysshe Shelley paid a visit
to Dublin, having, as he informs us, ' selected Ireland
as a theatre the widest and fairest for the operations
of the determined friends of religious and political
freedom' " (p. 388). In this extract, however, Dr.
Drummond himself has not transcribed the words quite
correctly. Shelley says, "the friend/' not "the
friends " " of religious and political freedom."

The fact that Hamilton Rowan preserved until the
day of his death, which took place on the 1st of No-
vember, 1834, when he had reached his eighty-fourth
year, both the pamphlet and letter of Shelley, shows
that he must have felt some interest both in the sub-
ject and in the writer. Could he have foreseen the
connexion which was ultimately to take place between
the daughter of his old friend Mary Wollstonecraft,*
and the young political enthusiast of 1812, we may be
sure that in him Shelley would have found a sincere

* The fact that Mary Wollstonecraft's mother was an Irishwoman
may not have been without interest to Hamilton Eowan. " Her
father's name was Edward John," says Mr. Godwin, " and the name
of her mother Elizabeth, of the family of Dixons of Ballyshannon,
in the kingdom of Ireland " (Memoirs of the Author of a Vin-
dication of the Right of Woman, p. 5). Some interesting particu-
lars of Mary Wollstonecraft's life in France during her connexion
with Mr. Gilbert Imlay may be found in The Autobiography of
Hamilton Rowan, by Dr. Drummond.

COPY OP PAMPHLET SENT TO HAMILTON ROWAN. 167

and useful friend. Shelley in his letter speaks of
" copies" of his pamphlet, but one only it would ap-
pear was sent. This particular copy I have seen. On
the death of Mr. Rowan, after a brief delay, his papers
were placed in the hands of the Rev. Dr. Drummond,
one of the ministers of the Unitarian Meeting-house,
Strand Street, Dublin, and with these the letter and
pamphlet of Shelley. The Address to the Irish People
was inscribed on the title-page in Mr. Rowan's hand-
writing, " Mr. Shelley's pamphlet with a letter." The
letter as above stated was printed in the Autobiogra-
phy of Hamilton Rowan, and the original in this way
got separated from the pamphlet. This was sold a
few years ago, after the death of Dr. Drummond, at
the auction of his library. It was bought by a Dublin
bookseller, who deals almost exclusively in works re-
lating to Ireland,* and was resold by him, as he
informs me, to the late learned Dr. Todd, the Librarian
of Trinity College, Dublin, who purchased it either for
himself or the College library. On the sale of Dr.
Todd's valuable library, however, which commenced
on November I5th, 1869, it was not forthcoming;
neither had it been received at the library of Trinity
College a year later, when I inquired for it.

The two days that followed the writing of the
letter to Hamilton Rowan must have been busy and
exciting ones for Shelley. How he was occupied, and
the extraordinary steps he took to circulate his pam-
phlet among the people of Dublin, will be best shown
by the following copious extracts from a hitherto un-

* Mr. John O'Daly, of 9, Anglesea Street, Dublin, in whose
Sibliotheca Hibernica the Address to the Irish People, by Percy
Bysshe Shelley, was advertised at the time referred to.

T68 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

published letter of Shelley to his philosophical female
friend at Hurstpierpoint in Sussex. Long as these
extracts are, they form only a portion of the letter.
I have selected only those passages that refer to the
public objects he had in view — such explanations as
seem needful will be given at the end.

From an unpublished letter of Shelley to Miss Hitchener.
" Feb. 27 [1812], 7, Lower Sackville Street.

" I have already sent 400 of my Irish pamphlets
into the world, and they have excited a sensation of
wonder in Dublin. 1 100 yet remain for distribution.
Copies have been sent to sixty public-houses. No
prosecution is yet attempted. I do not see how it can
be. Congratulate me, my friend, for everything pro-
ceeds well. I could not expect more rapid success.
The persons with whom I have got acquainted approve
of my principles .... but they differ from the
mode of my improving their principles " . . . . [Re-
ferring to his wish to have his friend with him in
Dublin, he says that it did not arise from any private
partiality], "but because you would share with me the
high delight of awaking a noble nation from the
lethargy of its bondage. Expectation is on the tip-
toe. I send a man out every day to distribute copies,
with instructions where and how to give them. His
account corresponds with the multitudes of people who
possess them. I stand at the balcony of our window,
and watch till I see a man who looks likely. I throw
a book to him. On Monday my next book makes its
appearance : this is addressed to a different class, re-
commending and proposing associations. I have in
my mind a plan for proselytizing the young men at

MODE OF DISTRIBUTING THE PAMPHLET. 169

Dublin College. Those who are not entirely given up
to the grossness of dissipation are perhaps reclaimable."
....-•" Whilst you are with us in Wales I shall at-
tempt to organize one there" [that is, a " philanthro-
pic association"], which will co-operate with the
Dublin one. Might I not extend them all over Eng-
land, and quietly revolutionize the country ?"....
" My youth is much against me here. Strange that
truth should not be judged by its inherent excellence,
independent of any reference to the utterer. To im-
prove on this advantage, the servant gave out I was
only fifteen years of age." . . . . " I have not yet
seen Curran. I do not like him for accepting the
office of Master" [of the Rolls] . " O'Connor, brother
to the rebel Arthur, is here." [I have] " written to
him. Do not fear what you say in your letters. I
am resolved. Good principles are scarce here. The
public papers are either Oppositionists or Ministerial.
One is as contemptible and narrow as the other. I
wish I could change this. I am of course hated by
both of those parties. The remnant of united Irish-
men whose wrongs make them hate England, I have
more hope of. I have met with no determined re-
publicans, but have found some who are democrat-
ifiable." . . . . " We shall leave this place at the end
of April. I must not be idle in Wales : there you
will come to us. Bring the dear little Americans,
resign your school, and live with us for ever."

The postscript is by Harriet.

" Percy has given me his letter to fill up, but what
I'm to say I really do not know. Oh, yesterday I
received a most affectionate letter from dear Mrs.
C " [probably Calvert]. "Now don't you be

! 70 PERCY B YSSHE SHELLEY.

jealous when I mention her name. She is afraid we
shall effect no good here, and thinks our opinions will
change of the Irish. We have seen very little of them
as yet, but when Percy is more known, I suppose we
shall know more at the same time. My pen is very
bad, according to custom. I am sure you would
laugh were you to see us give the pamphlets. We
throw them out of window, and give them to men
that we pass in the streets. For 'my self I am ready to
die of laughter when it is done, and Percy looks so
grave. Yesterday he put one into a woman's hood
of a cloak. She knew nothing of it, and we passed
her and could hardly get on, my muscles (?) were so
irritated/' (?)

There is a second postscript by Shelley.

" I have been necessarily called away whilst Harriet
has been scribbling. You may guess how much my
time is taken up. Adieu — the post will go. You will
soon hear again from your affectionate and unalter-
able " PERCY/'

The whole of these curious extracts will be read
with interest, particularly perhaps the girlish and
simple postscript of Harriet. The eleven hundred
copies of the Address to the Irish People which re-
mained for distribution seem to have been almost all
dispersed by the i8th of March, as we shall find by
Harriet's remarkable letter of that date which was
stopped at Holyhead, and a copy of which, sent to the
Home Secretary, is still preserved in the Record Office,
that few then remained in the possession of the author.
It is to be noticed that at the moment when Shelley
"could not expect more rapid success/' he had fixed

DR. ANSTER AND THE "NORTH BRITISH REVIEW." 171

the time of his intended departure from Ireland. This
disposes of the statement so frequently repeated that
Shelley abandoned his Irish project in disgust. The
man whom Shelley sent out every day to distribute
the pamphlets, was in all probability " the servant "
who gave out that Shelley was only fifteen years of
age. This was Daniel Hill, who accompanied the
Shelley s to Barnstaple, who was arrested and impri-
soned there, who turned up at a critical moment at
Tanyrallt, returned with the Shelleys to Dublin, and
eventually went with them to London. The letter of
Shelley corroborates the story told in the North
British Review, for November, 1847, in an article on
the Life and Writings of Shelley. The paper was
written by my lamented friend the late Dr. Anster,
the translator of Faust* He says :— " Shelley's
pamphlet is before us. Medwin it seems searched in
vain for a copy. Ours was obtained through an Irish
friend of Shelley's, whose acquaintance with the poet
originated accidentally. A poor man offered the
pamphlet for a few pence — its price stated on the
title-page was fivepence. On being asked how he
got it, he said a parcel of them were given him by a

* In the last letter which I had the pleasure of receiving from
the celebrated author of the History of Spanish Literature, Mr.
Ticknor makes the following allusion to Dr. Anster, under date
Boston, Aug. 2pth, 1870. " I was touched and pleased to see your
extract from Anster's Faustus, which I have liked ever since parts
of it appeared anonymously in Blackwood's Magazine. Indeed I
knew the author afterwards in Dublin in 1835, and have a copy of
the first part, which I value not a little as his gift. I dare say
you knew him. Yours very cordially, GEOEGE TICKNOK." This
tribute of the great American scholar, written a few months before
his death, to the memory of a highly accomplished, able, and
amiable man will be read with interest.

172 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

young gentleman, who told him to get what he could
for them — at all events to distribute them. Inquiry
was made at Shelley's lodgings to ascertain the truth
of the vendor's story. He was not at home; but
when he heard of it he went to return the visit, and
kindly acquaintanceship thus arose. The Shelleys —
husband and wife — were then Pythagoreans. Shelley
spoke as a man believing in the metempsychosis — and
they did not eat animal food. They seem however
to have tolerated it ; for on one occasion a fowl was
murdered for our friend's dinner. Of the first Mrs.
Shelley the recollection of our friend is faint, but it is
of an amiable and unaffected person; very young
and very pleasing, and she and Shelley seemed much
attached." After describing the Address to the Irish
People, Dr. Anster says (speaking of Shelley) : " And
he promises another pamphlet, in which he shall
reveal the plan and structure of the proposed associa-
tion. Whether he printed that pamphlet we have not
been able to learn." — North British Review, vol. viii.
Nov. 1847.

This last sentence raises considerable doubt as to
the extent of the personal acquaintance said to have
existed between Dr. Anster's friend and Shelley. A
person who had sought Shelley out in consequence of
the interest excited in him by the first pamphlet could
scarcely have been left in ignorance of the second.
Of the second pamphlet Dr. Anster's informant knew
nothing, probably from its not having been mentioned
by Medwin, who was equally ignorant of its existence.
It was published on Monday the 2nd of March,
1812, about a week before the adoption of the Pytha-
gorean system of diet by Shelley and his wife. The time
at which they commenced to abstain from animal

THE YOUNG MEN OF TRINITY COLLEGE. 173

food is fixed almost to the day by Harriet herself in
an unpublished letter which will subsequently be
quoted. In another part of Dr. Anster's very interest-
ing paper on Shelley, he speaks from the recollection
of the late Chief Baron Woulfe of Shelley's cold and
precise mode of addressing a public meeting. This
will be found to have arisen from some imperfect
recollection of the circumstance by the estimable
judge.

The plan for " proselytizing the young men at
Dublin College/' or at least such of them as were not
"entirely given up to the grossness of dissipation/'
has unfortunately not been revealed. We are left in
ignorance also whether it was to patriotism, philan-
thropy, or the Pythagorean system they were to be
converted. Whatever may have been the direction of
the intended reformation, there may be some who will
think that this project was not the least chimerical of
those that occupied the mind and heart of the young
poet when in Dublin.

The balcony in front of 7, Lower Sackville Street,
from which Shelley and Harriet threw the pamphlets
to whoever looked " likely," still remains. It runs
across the whole width of the house, so that Percy
and Harriet had each a window from which they
could bombard the astonished town with " books/'
We have no doubt that he must have enjoyed this
mode of diffusing useful knowledge immensely — quite
as much as he did the following year at Lymouth
when he substituted for it his oil-skin boats and air-
tight bottles. The house then belonging to Mr.
Dunne was occupied for many years by Messrs. Kohler
and Co., and is now in possession of Messrs. Stark
Brothers, print sellers and artists. As long as the

1-4 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

balcony remains it will always be an object of interest
to those who regard with something like affection
even the " local habitation '' of an author whom they
love as well as admire.

The "O'Connor, brother to the rebel Arthur/' to
whom Shelley wrote, was the celebrated Roger
O'Connor, father of the perhaps still more famous
Fergus O'Connor. The history of Arthur O'Connor,
who became a general in the French service, is too
well known to be dwelt on here. Arthur and. Roger
O'Connor were nephews of Viscount Longueville, and
the events of both their lives are full of romance and
mystery. The most famous event in the life of Roger
was the charge, for which he was tried and acquitted
in 1817, of having, with a band of his retainers, robbed
the Gal way mail coach in 1812, the year in which the
letter above alluded to was addressed to him by
Shelley. It is stated that plunder was not the
motive of this daring outrage ; but that certain docu-
ments of a political nature compromising both Roger
O'Connor and Sir Francis Burdett being known to
be in the mail bags, the attempt to secure them was
made and successfully carried out. The active agents
in the matter were, however, not so fastidious in their
tastes. Five of the gang were subsequently hanged
at Cavan for attempting to pass some of the bank-
notes plundered on this occasion. If there had been
any person of rank the leader or tempter in this out-
rage, the fidelity of these men is very remarkable.
From my own recollection I know that a popular
though unfounded impression exists in Ireland that
Roger O'Connor had something to do with the affair.
That seems to have arisen from an idea that there
was enough of the daring and romantic in the act as

ROGER a CONNOR AND SIR FRANCIS BURDETT. 175

to make it not uncharacteristic of the man. There is
no evidence whatever worth a moment's consideration
that would in any way connect Sir Francis Burdett
with such a lawless proceeding. In fact, the circum-
stance of his coming to Ireland in 1817 to stand be-
side his friend, for whose independence of mind on
political matters he had a great regard, when Roger
O'Connor was tried for this offence and acquitted,
is an evidence not only of his own, but of his friend's
innocence in the matter. Those who care to read
" a sensational story " on the subject, should get the
sixth edition of Mr. Fitzpatrick's popular work
Ireland before the Union, as certain misappre-
hensions connected with Sir Francis Burdett, pre-
viously inserted in the work, are corrected in that
edition.

Nothing further in Shelley's letter of the 2;th of
February, 1812, seems to require explanation.

The following extract is taken from another unpub-
lished letter of Shelley to Miss Kitchener. It is undated,
but was probably written some time after the preceding.
The intended visit to the printer could have no
reference to the second pamphlet, which was by that
time probably struck off, as it was published three
days later. It was more likely in connexion with The
Declaration of Rights, a broadside intended for posting
on walls, which he printed at Dublin, and which formed
part of the seizure at Holyhead on the 3oth of March,
1812. The establishment of the very peculiar bank of
deposit referred to in the following extract, where the
common stock of the three travellers was kept for
security, was not a discreditable, and may have been
a wise precaution on the part of the much abused Eliza
Westbrook : —

1 76 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

(From an unpublished letter of Shelley.}

" . . . . Things go on in Ireland as you shall know.
I have much food for interest and occupation of mind
in the events of each day." . . . . " Eliza keeps our
common stock of money for safety in some nook or
corner of her dress, but we are not dependent on her,
although she gives it out as we want it." . . . . " You
think too meanly of yourself, too highly of me." ....
" I proceed (?) in the next street after I have seen
the printer."

It may be mentioned that one of the sheets of The
Correspondent, a Dublin newspaper, previously re-
ferred to as having been sent to Miss Kitchener as a
wrapper to some enclosure, is part of the number for
"Friday, March I3th, i8j2." Both the pamphlets
were at that date printed and circulated. The other
sheet of The Correspondent must have belonged to
a different and earlier nnmber of that paper, as Shelley
writes in it that he sent therewith the first sheet of
The Address to the Irish People. The second sheet of
The Correspondent } on which there is a rude pen-and-
ink drawing by Shelley, probably contained the proof
sheet of The Declaration of Eights, and this fixes the
time of its being printed, which was certainly before
the 1 8th of March, on which day it was forwarded to
Holyhead with all the copies of the pamphlets then,
remaining in Shelley's hands.

This may be the fitting time to introduce the first
of these remarkable pamphlets, The Address to the
Irish People. Excepting an occasional correction of
some obvious error of the press, it is here printed
exactly as in the original. From many of the historical
parallels and deductions I entirely differ, as will

WISE ADMONITION OF GODWIN. 177

doubtless most of my readers. Those who do not may
study with advantage the following judicious remarks
of Godwin to Shelley himself on the receipt of this
very pamphlet : —

" One principle that I believe is wanting to you,
and all our too fervent and impetuous reformers, is
the thought that almost every institution or form of
society is good in its place, and in the period of time
to which it belongs. How many beautiful and
admirable effects grew out of Popery and the monastic
institution, in the period when they were in their
genuine health and vigour. To them we owe -almost
all our logic and our literature." — Letter to Shelley,
March 4th, 1812.*

* The great excuse of Shelley lies in " his want of religious
education at home," which his friend Captain Medwin in the words
just quoted frankly admits (Life of Shelley, vol. ii. p. 357). In
that best of schools the feelings of love and reverence which are usually
implanted in the minds and hearts of most children seem to have
been entirely omitted in the case of the neglected Shelley. To his
ill-chosen college friend Mr. Hogg, with whom at the time he was
only acquainted six months, he could thus write of the most
hallowed circle in the world — that which is drawn around the
fireside of one's home. " Certain members of my family," says
Shelley, "are no more Christians than Epicurus himself" (Hogg,
vol. i. p. 377). We may deplore the sad condition of such a
childhood, but we cannot admit that the experience which is here
so painfully acknowledged prepared the writer to be either a just
or competent critic of the effects of religious teaching on the minds
of others who happily were subject to far different influences. As
for the supposed facts, historical and theological, in Shelley's
pamphlet, they are for the most part simply untrue. The uncon-
scious libel on the religion of the people he addressed, which he calls
" fair," is, under the circumstances of the case, absolutely amusing.

AN ADDRESS

TO THE

IRISH PEOPLE.

BY PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

ADVERTISEMENT.

The lowest possible price is set on this publication, because it is the inten-
tion of the Author to awaken in the minds of the Irish poor a know-
ledge of their real state, summarily pointing out the evils of that
state, and suggesting rational means of remedy. — Catholic Emanci-
pation, and a Repeal of the Union A ct (the latter, the most successful
engine that England ever wielded over the misery of fallen Ireland)
being treated of in the following Address, as grievances which
unanimity and resolution may remove, and associations conducted
with peaceable firmness, being earnestly recommended as means for
embodying that unanimity and firmness which must finally be
successful.

©ublt'n :

1812.
Price d.

AN ADDRESS

TO THE

IEISH PEOPLE.

FELLOW MEN, —

I am not an Irishman, yet I can feel for
you. I hope there are none among you who will read
this address with prejudice or levity, because it is
made by an Englishman ; indeed, I believe there are
not. The Irish are a brave nation. They have a
heart of liberty in their breasts, but they are much
mistaken if they fancy that a stranger cannot have as
warm a one. Those are my brothers and my coun-
trymen who are unfortunate. I should like to know
what there is in a man being an Englishman, a
Spaniard, or a Frenchman that makes him worse or
better than he really is. He was born in one town,
you in another, but that is no reason why he should
not feel for you, desire your benefit, or be willing to
give you some advice, which may make you more
capable of knowing your own interest, or acting so as
to secure it. There are many Englishmen who cry
down the Irish, and think it answers their ends to
revile all that belongs to Ireland : but it is not because
these men are Englishmen that they maintain such

j 82 PERC Y B YSSHE SHELLS Y.

opinions, but because they wish to get money, and
titles, and power. They would act in this manner to
whatever country they might belong, until mankind is
much altered for the better, which reform, I hope,
will one day be effected. I address you, then, as my
brothers and my fellow men, for I should wish to see
the Irishman who, if England was persecuted as
Ireland is, who, if France was persecuted as Ireland
is, who, if any set of men that helped to do a public
service, were prevented from enjoying its benefits as
Irishmen are — 1 should like to see the man, I say,
who would see these misfortunes, and not attempt to
succour the sufferers when he could, just that I might
tell him that he was no Irishman, but some bastard
mongrel bred up in a court, or some coward fool who
was a democrat to all above him, and an aristocrat to
all below him. I think there are few true Irishmen
who would not be ashamed of such a character, still
fewer who possess it. I know that there are some, not
among you, my friends, but among your enemies, who,
seeing the title of this piece, will take it up with a
sort of hope that it may recommend violent measures,
and thereby disgrace the cause of freedom, that the
warmth of an heart desirous that liberty should be
possessed equally by all, will vent itself in abuse on
the enemies of liberty, bad men who deserve the con-
tempt of the good, and ought not to excite their
indignation to the harm of their cause. But these
men will be disappointed — I know the warm feeling
of an Irishman sometimes carries him beyond the
point of prudence. I do not desire to root out, but
to moderate this honourable warmth. This will dis-
appoint the pioneers of oppression, and they will be
sorry that through this address nothing will occur

AN ADDRESS TO THE IRISH PEOPLE. 183

which can be twisted into any other meaning but
what is calculated to fill you with that moderation
which they have not, and make you give them that
toleration which they refuse to grant to you. You
profess the Roman Catholic religion which your fathers
professed before you. Whether it is the best religion
or not I will not here inquire : all religions are good
which make men good ; and the way that a person
ought to prove that his method of worshipping God is
best is for himself to be better than all other men.
But we will consider what your religion was in old
times and what it is now : you may say it is not a fair
way for me to proceed as a Protestant, but I am not a
Protestant, nor am I a Catholic, and therefore not
being a follower of either of these religions, I am
better able to judge between them. A Protestant is
my brother, and a Catholic is my brother. I am
happy when I can do either of them a service, and no
pleasure is so great to me than that which I should
feel if my advice could make men of any profession of
faith, wiser, better, and happier.

The Roman Catholics once persecuted the Protes-
tants, the Protestants now persecute the Roman
Catholics. Should we think that one is as bad as the
other.? No, you are not answerable for the faults of
your fathers any more than the Protestants are good
for the goodness of their fathers. I must judge of
people as I see them ; the Irish Catholics are badly
used. I will not endeavour to hide from them their
wretchedness ; they would think that I mocked at them
if I should make the attempt. The Irish Catholics now
demand for themselves and proffer for others un-
limited toleration, and the sensible part among them,
which I am willing to think constitutes a very large

!84 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

portion of their body, know that the gates of Heaven
are open to people of every religion, provided they are
good. But the Protestants, although they may think
so in their hearts, which certainly, if they think at all,
they must, seem to act as if they thought that God was
better pleased with them than with you ; they trust the
reins of earthly government only to the hands of their
own sect. In spite of this, I never found one of them
impudent enough to say that a Roman Catholic, or a
Quaker, or a Jew, or a Mahometan, if he was a virtuous
man, and did all the good in his power, would go to
Heaven a bit the slower for not subscribing to the
thirty-nine articles ; and if he should say so, how ridi-
culous in a foppish courtier not six feet high to direct
the spirit of universal harmony in what manner to
conduct the affairs of the universe !

The Protestants say that there was a time when the
Roman Catholics burnt and murdered people of diffe-
rent sentiments, and that their religious tenets are
now as they were then. This is all very true. You
certainly worship God in the same way that you did
when these barbarities took place, but is that any reason
that you should now be barbarous ? There is as much
reason to suppose it as to suppose that because a man's
great-grandfather, who was a Jew, had been hung for
sheepstealing, that I, by believing the same religion
as he did, must certainly commit the same crime. Let
us then see what the Roman Catholic religion has been.
No one knows much of the early times of the Christian
religion until about three hundred years after its be-
ginning; two great Churches, called the Roman and
the Greek Churches, divided the opinions of men. They
fought for a very long time — a great many words were
wasted, and a great deal of blood shed.

AN ADDRESS TO THE IRISH PEOPLE. 185

This,, as you may suppose,, did no good. Each
party, however, thought they were doing God a service,
and that he would reward them. If they had looked
an inch before their noses, they might have found that
fighting and killing men, and cursing them and hating
them, was the very worst way for getting into favour
with a Being who is allowed by all to be best pleased
with deeds of love and charity. At last, however,
these two religions entirely separated, and the popes
reigned like kings and bishops at Rome, in Italy.
The Inquisition was set up, and in the course of one
year 30,000 people were burnt in Italy and Spain
for entertaining different opinions from those of the
pope and the priests. There was an instance of shock-
ing barbarity which the Roman Catholic clergy com-
mitted in France by order of the Pope. The bigoted
monks of that country, in cold blood, in one night
massacred 80,000 Protestants; this was done under
the authority of the Pope, and there was only one
Roman Catholic bishop who had virtue enough to
refuse to help. The vices of monks and nuns in their
convents were in those times shameful. People thought
that they might commit any sin, however monstrous,
if they had money enough to prevail upon the priests
to absolve them. In truth, at that time the priests
shamefully imposed upon the people ; they got all the
power into their own hands; they persuaded them that a
man could not be entrusted with the care of his own
soul, and by cunningly obtaining possession of their
secrets, they became more powerful than kings, princes,
dukes, lords, or ministers. This power made them
bad men ; for although rational people are very good
in their natural state, there are now, and ever have
been, very few whose good dispositions despotic power

T86 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

does not destroy. I have now given a fair description
of what your religion was ; and Irishmen, my brothers
will you make your friend appear a liar, when he takes
upon himself to say for you that you are not now what the
professors of the same faith were in times of yore. Do
I speak false when I say that the Inquisition is the
object of your hatred ? Am I a liar if I assert that
an Irishman prizes liberty dearly, that he will preserve
that right, and if it be wrong, does not dream that
money can give to a priest, or the talking of another
man erring like himself, can in the least influence the
judgment of the eternal God ? I am not a liar if I
affirm in your name, that you believe a Protestant
equally with yourself to be worthy of the kingdom of
Heaven, if he be equally virtuous, that you will treat
men as brethren wherever you may find them, and
that difference of opinion in religious matters shall not,
does not, in the least on your part obstruct the most
perfect harmony on every other subject. Ah ! no,
Irishmen, I am not a liar. I seek your confidence,
not that I may betray it, but that I may teach you to
be happy and wise and good. If you will not repose
any trust in me I shall lament ; but I will do everything
in my power that is honourable, fair, and open to gain
it. Some teach you that others are heretics, that you
alone are right ; some teach that rectitude consists in
religious opinions, without which no morality is good.
Some will tell you that you ought to divulge your
secrets to one particular set of men. Beware, my
friends, how you trust those who speak in this way.
They will, I doubt not, attempt to rescue you from
your present miserable state, but they will prepare a
worse. It will be out of the frying-pan into the
fire. Your present oppressors, it is true, will then.

42V ADDRESS TO THE IRISH PEOPLE. r8;

oppress you no longer, but you will feel the lash of a
master a thousand times more bloodthirsty and cruel.
Evil designing men will spring up who will prevent
you thinking as you please — will burn you if you do
not think as they do. There are always bad men
who take advantage of hard times. The monks and
the priests of old were very bad men; take care no
such abuse your confidence again. You are not blind
to your present situation ; you are villanously treated ;
you are badly used. That this slavery shall cease, I
will venture to prophesy. Your enemies dare not to
persecute you longer, the spirit of Ireland is bent, but
it is not .broken, and that they very well know. But
I wish your views to embrace a wider scene — I wish
you to think for your children and your children's
children ; to take great care (for it all rests with you)
that whilst one tyranny is destroyed, another more
terrible and fierce does not spring up. Take care
then of smooth-faced impostors, who talk indeed of
freedom, but who will cheat you into slavery. Can there
be worse slavery than the depending for the safety of
your soul on the will of another man ? Is one man
more favoured than another by God ? No, certainly,
they are all favoured according to the good they do, and
not according to the rank and profession they hold.
God values a poor man as much as a priest, and has
given him a soul as much >to himself. The worship
that a kind Being must love, is that of a simple affec-
tionate heart, that shows its piety in good works, and
not in ceremonies, or confessions, or burials, or proces-
sions, or wonders. Take care then that you are not
led away. Doubt everything that leads you not to
charity, and think of the word " heretic" as a word
which some selfish knave invented for the ruin and

!88 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

misery of the world, to answer his own paltry and
narrow ambition. Do not inquire if a man be a heretic,
if he be a Quaker, a Jew, or a Heathen ; but if he be a
virtuous man, if he loves liberty and truth, if he wish
the happiness and peace of human kind. If a man be
ever so much a believer and love not these things, he
is a heartless hypocrite, a rascal, and a knave. Despise
and hate him as ye despise a tyrant and a villain.
Oh, Ireland ! thou emerald of the ocean, whose sons
are generous and brave, whose daughters are honour-
able and frank and fair, thou art the isle on whose
green shores I have desired to see the standard of
liberty erected — a flag of fire — a beacon at which the
world shall light the torch of Freedom !

We will now examine the Protestant religion. Its
origin is called the Reformation. It was undertaken
by some bigoted men who showed how little they
understood the spirit of reform by burning each other.
You will observe that these men burnt each other,
indeed they universally betrayed a taste for destroy-
ing, and vied with the chiefs of the Roman Catholic
religion in not only hating their enemies, but those
men who least of all were their enemies, or anybody's
enemies. Now do the Protestants or do they not
hold the same tenets as they did when Calvin burnt
Servetus ? They swear that they do. We can have no
better proof. Then with what face can the Protestants
object to Catholic Emancipation on the plea that
Catholics once were barbarous ; when their own esta-
blishment is liable to the very same objections, on the
very same grounds ? I think this is a specimen of bare-
faced intoleration, which I had hoped would not have
disgraced this age ; this age, which is called the age
of reason, of thought diffused, of virtue acknowledged,

AN ADDRESS TO THE IRISH PEOPLE. 189

and its principles fixed — oh ! that it may be so. I
have mentioned the Catholic and Protestant religions
more to show that any objection to the toleration of
the one forcibly applies to the non-permission of the
other, or rather to show that there is no reason why
both might not be tolerated ; why every religion, every
form of thinking might not be tolerated. But why do
I speak of toleration ? This word seems to mean that
there is some merit in the person who tolerates : he
has this merit if it be one, of refraining to do an evil
act, but he will share the merit with every other
peaceable person who pursues his own business, and
does not hinder another of his rights. It is not a
merit to tolerate, but it is a crime to be intolerant : it
is not a merit in me that I sat quietly at home without
murdering any one, but it is a crime if I do so.
Besides, no act of a national representation can make
anything wrong which was not wrong before ; it
cannot change virtue and truth, and for a very plain
reason : because they are unchangeable. An Act
passed in the British Parliament to take away the
rights of Catholics to act in that assembly, does not
really take them away. It prevents them from doing
it by force. This is in such cases the last and only
efficacious way. But force is not the test of truth ;
they will never have recourse to violence who acknow-
ledge no other rule of behaviour but virtue and
justice.

The folly of persecuting men for their religion will
appear if we examine it. Why do we persecute
them ? to make them believe as we do. Can any-
thing be more barbarous or foolish. For although we
may make them say they believe as we do, they will
not in their hearts do any such thing, indeed they

I9o PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

cannot; this devilish method can only make them
false hypocrites. For what is belief? We cannot
believe just what we like, but only what we think to be
true ; for you cannot alter a man's opinion by beating
or burning, but by persuading him that what you
think is right, and this can only be done by fair words
and reason. It is ridiculous to call a man a heretic
because he thinks differently from you; he might as
well call you one. In the same sense the word
orthodox is used ; it signifies " to think rightly," and
what can be more vain, presumptuous in any man or
any set of men, to put themselves so out of the ordi-
nary course of things as to say — " What we think is
right, no other people throughout the world have
opinions anything like equal to ours." Anything
short of unlimited toleration, and complete charity
with all men, on which you will recollect that Jesus
Christ principally insisted, is wrong, and for this
reason. What makes a man to be a good man ? Not
his religion, or else there could be no good men in
any religion but one, when yet we find that all
ages, countries, and opinions have produced them.
Virtue and wisdom always so far as they went pro-
duced liberty or happiness long before any of the
religions now in the world have ever [been ?] heard
of. The only use of a religion that ever I could see,
is to make men wiser or better ; so far as it does this
it is a good one. Now if people are good, and yet have
sentiments differing from you, then all the purposes
are answered which any reasonable man could want,
and whether he thinks like you or not is of too little
consequence to employ means which must be disgust-
ing and hateful to candid minds ; nay, they cannot
approve of such means. For, as I have before said,

AN ADDRESS TO THE IRISH PEOPLE. 191

you cannot believe or disbelieve what you like —
perhaps some of you may doubt this, but just try. I
will take a common and familiar instance. Suppose
you have a friend of whom you wish to think well ; he
commits a crime which proves to you that he is a
bad man. It is very painful to you to think ill of
him, and you would still think well of him if you
could. But mark the word, you cannot think well of
him, not even to secure your own peace of mind can
you do so. You try, but your attempts are vain. This
shows how little power a man has over his belief, or
rather, that he cannot believe what he does not think
true. And what shall we think now ? What fools
and tyrants must not those men be who set up a par-
ticular religion, say that this religion alone is right, and
that every one who disbelieves it ought to be deprived
of certain rights which are really his, and which would
be allowed him if he believed. Certainly if you
cannot help disbelief, it is not any fault in you. To take
away a man's rights and privileges, to call him a
heretic, or to think worse of him, when at the same
time you cannot help owning that he has committed
no fault, is the grossest tyranny and intoleration.
From what has been said I think we may be justified
in concluding that people of all religions ought
to have an equal share in the State, that the words
heretic and orthodox were invented by a vain villain,
and have done a great deal of harm in the world, and
that no person is answerable for his belief whose
actions are virtuous and moral, that the religion is
best whose members are the best men, and that no
person can help either his belief or disbelief. Be in
charity with all men. It does not therefore signify
what your religion was, or what the Protestant

I92 PERCY BYSSHE SffELLET.

religion was, we must consider them as we find them.
What are they now ? Yours is not intolerant ; indeed,
my friends, I have ventured to pledge myself for you
that it is not. You merely desire to go to Heaven
in your own way, nor will you interrupt fellow
travellers, although the road which you take may not
he that which they take. Believe me that good-
ness of heart and purity of life are things of more
value in the eye of the Spirit of Goodness, than idle
earthly ceremonies and things which may have anything
but charity for their object. And is it for the first or
the last of these things that you or the Protestants con-
tend ? It is for the last. Prejudiced people indeed
are they who grudge to the happiness and comfort of
your souls, things which can do harm to no one. They
are not compelled to shares in these rites. Irishmen !
knowledge is more extended than in the early period
of your religion, people have learned to think, and
the more thought there is in the world, the more
happiness and liberty will there be : — men begin now
to think less of idle ceremonies and more of realities.
From a long night have they risen, and they can
perceive its darkness. I know no men of thought
and learning who do not consider the Catholic
idea of purgatory much nearer the truth than the
Protestant one of eternal damnation. Can you think
that the Mahometans and the Indians, who have done
good deeds in this life, will not be rewarded in the
next ? The Protestants believe that they will be eter-
nally damned, at least they swear that they do. I
think they appear in a better light as perjurers
than believers in a falsehood so hurtful and un-
charitable as this. I propose unlimited toleration,
or rather the destruction both of toleration and in-

AN ADDRESS TO THE IRISH PEOPLE. 193

toleration. The act permits certain people to worship
God after such a manner, which, in fact, if not done,
would as far as in it lay prevent God from hearing
their address. Can we conceive anything more pre-
sumptuous, and at the same time more ridiculous,
than a set of men granting a licence to God to receive
the prayers of certain of his creatures ? Oh, Irishmen !
I am interested in your cause ; and it is not because
you are Irishmen or Roman Catholics that I feel with
you and feel for you ; but because you are men and
sufferers. Were Ireland at this moment peopled with
Brahmins, this very same Address would have been
suggested by the same state of mind. You have
suffered not merely for your religion, but some other
causes which I am equally desirous of remedying.
The Union of England with Ireland has withdrawn the
Protestant aristocracy and gentry from their native
country, and with these their friends and connections.
Their resources are taken from this country, although
they are dissipated in another ; the very poor people
are most infamously oppressed by the weight of burden
which the superior ranks lay upon their shoulders. I
am no less desirous of the reform of these evils (with
many others) than for the Catholic Emancipation.

Perhaps you all agree with me on both these
subjects. We now come to the method of doing these
things. I agree with the Quakers so far as they
disclaim violence, and trust their cause wholly and
solely to its own truth. If you are convinced of the
truth of your cause, trust wholly to its truth ; if you
are not convinced, give it up. In no case employ
violence ; the way to liberty and happiness is never to
transgress the rules of virtue and justice. Liberty and
happiness are founded upon virtue and justice ; if you

o

,94 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

destroy the one you destroy the other. However ill
others may act, this will be no excuse for you if you
follow their example ; it ought rather to warn you from
pursuing so bad a method. Depend upon it, Irishmen,
your cause shall not be neglected. I will fondly hope
that the schemes for your happiness and liberty, as well
as those for the happiness and liberty of the world,
will not be wholly fruitless. One secure method of
defeating them is violence on the side of the injured
party. If you can descend to use the same weapons
as your enemy, you put yourself on a level with him on
this score : you must be convinced that he is on these
grounds your superior. But appeal to the sacred
principles of virtue and justice, then how is he awed
into nothing ? How does truth show him in his real
colours, and place the cause of toleration and reform
in the clearest light ? I extend my view not only to
you as Irishmen, but to all of every persuasion, of
every country. Be calm, mild, deliberate, patient ;
recollect that you can in no measure more effectually
forward the cause of reform than by employing your
leisure time in reasoning or the cultivation of your
minds. Think and talk and discuss : the only subjects
you ought to propose are those of happiness and
liberty. Be free and be happy, but first be wise and
good. For you are not all wise or good. You are a
great and a brave nation, but you cannot yet be all
wise or good. You may be at some time, and then
Ireland will be an earthly paradise. You know what
is meant by a mob. It is an assembly of people who,
without foresight or thought, collect themselves to
disapprove of by force any measure which they dislike.
An assembly like this can never do anything but
harm ; tumultuous proceedings must retard the period

AN ADDRESS TO TEE IRISH PEOPLE. 195

•when thought and coolness will produce freedom and
happiness, and that to the very people who make the
mob. But if a number of human beings, after thinking
of their own interests, meet together for any conversa-
tion on them, and employ resistance of the mind, not
resistance of the body, these people are going the
right way to work. But let no fiery passions carry
them beyond this point. Let them consider that in
some sense the whole welfare of their countrymen
depends on their prudence, and that it becomes them
to guard the welfare of others as their own. Associa-
tions for purposes of violence are entitled to the
strongest disapprobation of the real reformist. Always
suspect that some knavish rascal is at the bottom of
things of this kind, waiting to profit by the confusion.
All secret associations are also bad. Are you men of
deep designs, whose deeds love darkness better than
light ? Dare you not say what you think before any
man ? Can you not meet in the open face of day in
conscious innocence ? Oh, Irishmen, ye can ! Hidden
arms, secret meetings, and designs violently to separate
England from Ireland are all very bad. I do not
mean to say the very end of them is bad ; the object
you have in view may be just enough, whilst the way
you go about it is wrong — may be calculated to produce
an opposite effect. Never do evil that good may come ;
always think of others as well as yourself, and
cautiously look how your conduct may do good or
evil, when you yourself shall be mouldering in the
grave. Be fair, open, and you will be terrible to your
enemies. A friend cannot defend you, much as he
may feel for your sufferings, if you have recourse to
methods of which virtue and justice disapprove. No
cause is in itself so dear to liberty as yours. Much

O 2,

I96 PEROT BYSSHE SHELLEY.

depends on you ; far may your efforts spread either
hope or despair : do not then cover in darkness
wrongs at which the face of day and the tyrants who
bask in its warmth ought to blush. Wherever has
violence succeeded ? The French Revolution, although
undertaken with the best intentions, ended ill for the
people, because violence was employed. The cause
which they vindicated was that of truth, but they gave
it the appearance of a lie by using methods which
will suit the purposes of liars as well as their own.
Speak boldly and daringly what you think ; an Irish-
man was never accused of cowardice, do not let it be
thought possible that he is a coward. Let him say
what he thinks; a lie is the basest and meanest
employment of men : leave lies and secrets to courtiers
and lordlings. Be open, sincere, and single-hearted.
Let it be seen that the Irish votaries of Freedom dare
to speak what they think ; let them resist oppression,
not by force of arms, but by power of mind and
reliance on truth arid justice. Will any be arraigned
for libel — will imprisonment or death be the conse-
quences of this mode of proceeding ? Probably not.
But if it were so ? Is danger frightful to an Irishman
who speaks for his own liberty and the liberty of his
wife and children ? No ; he will steadily persevere, and
sooner shall pensioners cease to vote with their bene-
factors than an Irishman swerve from the path of
duty. But steadily persevere in the system above laid
down, its benefits will speedily be manifested. Perse-
cution may destroy some, but cannot destroy all, or
nearly all ; let it do its will. Ye have appealed to
truth and justice, show the goodness of your religion
by persisting in a reliance on these things, which must
be the rules even of the Almighty's conduct. But

AN ADDRESS TO THE IRISH PEOPLE. 197

before this can be done with any effect, habits of
SOBRIETY, REGULARITY, and THOUGHT must be entered
into, and firmly resolved upon.

My warm-hearted friends who meet together to
talk of the distresses of your countrymen until social
chat induces you to drink rather freely, as ye have
felt passionately, so reason coolly. Nothing hasty can
be lasting ; lay up the money with which you usually
purchase drunkenness and ill-health to relieve the pains
of your fellow sufferers. Let your children lisp of
freedom in the cradle — let your deathbed be the
school for fresh exertions — let every ^street of the city
and field of the country be connected with thoughts
which liberty has made holy. Be warm in your cause,
yet rational and charitable and tolerant — never let
the oppressor grind you into justifying his conduct
by imitating his meanness.

Many circumstances, I will own, may excuse what
is called rebellion, but no circumstances can ever make
it good for your cause, and however honourable to
your feelings, it will reflect no credit on your judg-
ments. It will bind you more closely to the block of
the oppressor, and your children's children, whilst they
talk of your exploits, will feel that you have done
them injury instead of benefit.

A crisis is now arriving which shall decide your
fate. The King of Great Britain has arrived at the
evening of his days. He has objected to your eman-
cipation ; he has been inimical to you ; but he will in
a certain time be no more. The present Prince of
Wales will then be king. It is said that he has
promised to restore you to freedom : your real and
natural right will, in that case, be no longer kept from
you. I hope he has pledged himself to this act of

i98 PEROT BYSSHE SHELLEY.

justice, because there will then exist some obligation
to bind him to do right. Kings are but too apt to
think little as they should do : they think everything
in the world is made for them ; when the truth is,
that it is only the vices of men that make such people
necessary, and they have no other right of being
kings but in virtue of the good they do.

The benefit of the governed is the origin and
meaning of government. The Prince of Wales has
had every opportunity of knowing how he ought to
act about Ireland and liberty. That great and good
man Charles Fox, who was your friend and the friend
of freedom, was the friend of the Prince of Wales.
He never flattered or disguised his sentiments, but
spoke them openly on every occasion, and the Prince
was the better for his instructive conversation. He
saw the truth, and he believed it. Now I know not
what to say; his staff is gone, and he leans upon a
broken reed ; his present advisers are not like Charles
Fox, they do not plan for liberty and safety, not for
the happiness but for the glory of their country ; and
what, Irishmen, is the glory of a country divided from
their happiness ? It is a false light hung out by the
enemies of freedom to lure the unthinking into their
net. Men like these surround the Prince, and whether
or no he has really promised to emancipate you —
whether or no he will consider the promise of a
Prince of Wales binding to a King of England, is yet
a matter of doubt. We cannot at least be quite
certain of it : on this you cannot certainly rely. But
there are men who, wherever they find a tendency to
freedom, go there to increase, support, and regulate
that tendency. These men, who join to a rational
disdain of danger a practice of speaking the truth,

AN ADDRESS TO THE IRISH PEOPLE. 199

and defending the cause of the oppressed against the
oppressor — these men see what is right and will pursue
it. On such as these you may safely rely : they love
you as they love their brothers ; they feel for the un-
fortunate, and never ask whether a man is an English-
man or an Irishman, a catholic, a heretic, a Christian, or a
heathen, before their hearts and their purses are opened
to feel with their misfortunes and relieve their neces-
sities : such are the men who will stand by you for
ever. Depend then not upon the promises of princes,
but upon those of virtuous and disinterested men :
depend not upon force of arms or violence, but upon
the force of the truth of the rights which you have to
share equally with others, the benefits and the evils of
government.

The crisis to which I allude as the period of your
emancipation is not the death of the present King,
or any circumstance that has to do with kings, but
something that is much more likely to do you good :
it is the increase of virtue and wisdom which will
lead people to find out that force and oppression are
wrong and false ; and this opinion, when it once gains
ground, will prevent government from severity. It
will restore those rights which Government has taken
away. Have nothing to do with force or violence,
and things will safely and surely make their way to
the right point. The Ministers have now in Parlia-
ment a very great majority, and the Ministers are
against you. They maintain the falsehood that, were
you in power, you would prosecute [persecute ?] and
burn, on the plea that you once did so. They maintain
many other things of the same nature. They command
the majority of the House of Commons, or rather the
part of that assembly who receive pensions from Govern-

aoo PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

ment or whose relatives receive them. These men of
course are against you, because their employers are. But
the sense of the country is not against you ; the people of
England are not against you — they feel warmly for you
^-in some respects they feel with you. The sense of the
English and of their governors is opposite — there must
be an end of this ; the goodness of a Government con-
sists in the happiness of the governed. If the governed
are wretched and dissatisfied, the government has failed
in its end. It wants altering and mending. It will
be mended, and a reform of English government will
produce good to the Irish — good to all human kind,
excepting those whose happiness consists in others'
sorrows, and it will be a fit punishment for these to
be deprived of their devilish joy. This I consider as
an event which is approaching, and which will make
the beginning of our hopes for that period which may
spread wisdom and virtue so wide as to leave no hole
in which folly or villany may hide themselves. I wish
you, O Irishmen, to be as careful and thoughtful of
your interests as are your real friends. Do not drink,
do not play, do not spend any idle time, do not take
everything that other people say for granted — there are
numbers who will tell you lies to make their own
fortunes : you cannot more certainly do good to your
own cause than by defeating the intentions of these
men. Think, read, and talk ; let your own condition
and that of your wives and children fill your minds ;
disclaim all manner of alliance with violence : meet
together if you will, but do not meet in a mob. If
you think and read and talk with a real wish of bene-
fiting the cause of truth and liberty, it will soon be
seen how true a service you are tendering, and how
sincere you are in your professions ; but mobs and

AN ADDRESS TO THE IRISH PEOPLE. 201

violence must be discarded. The certain degree of
civil and religious liberty which the usage of the
English Constitution allows, is such as the worst of
men are entitled to, although you have it not ; but
that liberty which we may one day hope for, wisdom
and virtue can alone give you a right to enjoy. This
wisdom and this virtue I recommend on every account
that you should instantly begin to practise. Lose not
a day, not an hour, not a moment. Temperance,
sobriety, charity, and independence will give you
virtue ; and reading, talking, thinking, and searching
will give you wisdom ; when you have those things
you may defy the tyrant. It is not going often to
chapel, crossing yourselves, or confessing that will
make you virtuous ; many a rascal has attended re-
gularly at mass, and many a good man has never gone
at all. It is not paying priests or believing in what
they say that makes a good man, but it is doing good
actions or benefiting other people ; this is the true
way to be good, and the prayers and confessions and
masses of him who does not these things are good for
nothing at all. Do your work regularly and quickly :
when you have done, think, read, and talk ; do not
spend your money in idleness and drinking, which so
far from doing good to your cause, will do it harm.
If you have anything to spare from your wife and
children, let it do some good to other people, and put
them in a way of getting wisdom and virtue, as the
pleasure that will come from these good acts will be
much better than the headache that comes from a
drinking bout. And never quarrel between each other ;
be all of one mind as nearly as you can ; do these
things, and I will promise you liberty and happiness.
But if, on the contrary of these things, you neglect to

203

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

improve yourselves, continue to use the word heretic,
and demand from others the toleration which you are
unwilling to give, your friends and the friends of
liberty will have reason to lament the death-blow of
their hopes. I expect better things from you : it is
for yourselves that I fear and hope. Many English-
men are prejudiced against you ; they sit by their own
firesides, and certain rumours artfully spread are
ever on the wing against you. But these people who
think ill of you and of your nation are often the
very men who, if they had better information, would
feel for you most keenly. Wherefore are these reports
spread ? How do they begin ? They originate from the
warmth of the Irish character, which the friends of
the Irish nation have hitherto encouraged rather than
repressed ; this leads them in those moments, when
their wrongs appear so clearly, to commit acts which
justly excite displeasure. They begin therefore from
yourselves, although falsehood and tyranny artfully
magnify and multiply the cause of offence. Give no
offence.

I will for the present dismiss the subject of the
Catholic Emancipation ; a little reflection will con-
vince you that my remarks are just. Be true to your-
selves, and your enemies shall not triumph. I fear
nothing, if charity and sobriety mark your proceedings.
Everything is to be dreaded — you yourselves will be
unworthy of even a restoration to your rights, if you
disgrace the cause, which I hope is that of truth and
liberty, by violence ; if you refuse to others the toleration
•which you claim for yourselves. But this you will not
do. I rely upon it, Irishmen, that the warmth of your
character will be 'shown as much in union with Eng-
lishmen and what are called heretics., who feel for you

AN ADDRESS TO THE IRISH PEOPLE. 203

and love you, as in avenging your wrongs, or forward-
ing their annihilation. It is the heart that glows and
not the cheek. The firmness, sobriety, and consis-
tence of your outward behaviour will not at all show
any hardness of heart, but will prove that you are
determined in your cause, and are going the right
way to work. I will repeat that virtue and wisdom
are necessary to true happiness and liberty. The
Catholic Emancipation, I consider, is certain. I do
not see that anything but violence and intolerance
among yourselves can leave an excuse to your enemies
for continuing your slavery. The other wrongs undar
which you labour will probably also soon be done
away. You will be rendered equal to the people of
England in their rights and privileges, and will be in
all respects, so far as concerns the State, as happy.
And now, Irishmen, another and a more wide prospect
opens to my view. I cannot avoid, little as it may
appear to have anything to do with your present situa-
tion, to talk to you on the subject. It intimately
concerns the well-being of your children and your
children's children, and will perhaps more than any-
thing prove to you the advantage and necessity of
being thoughtful, sober, and regular ; of avoiding foolish
and idle talk, and thinking of yourselves as of men
who are able to be much wiser and happier than you
now are ; for habits like these will not only conduce
to the successful putting aside your present and im-
mediate grievances, but will contain a seed which in
future times will spring up into the tree of liberty,
and bear the fruit of happiness.

There is no doubt but the world is going wrong, or
rather that it is very capable of being much improved.
What I mean by this improvement is, the inducement

204 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

of a more equal and general diffusion of happiness and
liberty. Many people are very rich and many are
very poor. Which do you think are happiest ? I can
tell you that neither are happy, so far as their station,
is concerned. Nature never intended that there
should be such a thing as a poor man or a rich one.
Being put in an unnatural situation, they can neither
of them be happy, so far as then1 situation is concerned.
The poor man is born to obey the rich man, though
they both come into the world equally helpless and
equally naked. But the poor man does the rich no
service by obeying him — the rich man does the poor
no good by commanding him. It would be much
better if they could be prevailed upon to live equally
like brothers — they would ultimately both be happier.
But this can be done neither to-day nor to-morrow ;
much as such a change is to be desired, it is quite
impossible. Violence and folly in this, as in the other
case, would only put off the period of its event.
Mildness, sobriety, and reason are the effectual methods
of forwarding the ends of liberty and happiness.

Although we may see many things put in train
during our life-time, we cannot hope to see the work
of virtue and reason finished now ; we can only lay the
foundation for our posterity. Government is an evil ;
it is only the thoughtlessness and vices of men that
make it a necessary evil. When all men are good and
wise, government will of itself decay. So long as men
continue foolish and vicious, so long will government,
even such a Government as that of England, continue
necessary in order to prevent the crimes of bad men.
Society is produced by the wants, government by the
wickedness, and a state of just and happy equality by
the improvement and reason of man. It is in vain to

AN- ADDRESS TO THE IRISH PEOPLE. 205

hope for any liberty and happiness without reason and
virtue, for where there is no virtue there will be crime,
and where there is crime there must he government.
Before the restraints of government are lessened, it is
fit that we should lessen the necessity for them.
Before government is done away with, we must reform
ourselves. It is this work which I would earnestly
recommend to you. O Irishmen, REFORM YOURSELVES,
and I do not recommend it to you particularly because
I think that you most need it, but because I think
that your hearts are warm and your feelings high, and
you will perceive the necessity of doing it more than
those of a colder and more distant nature.

I look with an eye of hope and pleasure on the
present state of things, gloomy and incapable of im-
provement as they may appear to others. It delights
me to see that men begin to think and to act for the
good of others. Extensively as folly and selfishness
have predominated in this age, it gives me hope and
pleasure at least to see that many know what is
right. Ignorance and vice commonly go together : he
that would do good must be wise. A man cannot be
truly wise who is not truly virtuous. Prudence and
wisdom are very different things. The prudent man
is he who carefully consults for his own good : the
wise man is he who carefully consults for the good of
others.

I look upon Catholic Emancipation and the restora-
tion of the liberties and happiness of Ireland, so far as
they are compatible with the English Constitution, as
great and important events. I hope to see them soon.
But if all ended here, it would give me little pleasure.
I should still see thousands miserable and wicked ;
things would still be wrong. I regard then the

2o6 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY,

accomplishment of these things as the road to a greater
reform, that reform after which rirtue and wisdom
shall have conquered pain and vice — when no govern-
ment will be wanted but that of your neighbour's
opinion. I look to these things with hope and
pleasure, because I consider that they will certainly
happen, and because men will not then be wicked and
miserable. But I do not consider that they will or can
immediately happen ; their arrival will be gradual, and
it all depends upon yourselves how soon or how late
these great changes will happen. If all of you to-
morrow were virtuous and wise, government which
to-day is a safeguard, would then become a tyranny.
But I cannot expect a rapid change. Many are obsti-
nate and determined in their vice, whose selfishness
makes them think only of their own good, when in fact
the best way even to bring that about is to make others
happy. I do not wish to see things changed now,
because it cannot be done without violence, and we may
assure ourselves that none of us are fit for any change,
however good, if we condescend to employ force in a
cause which we think right. Force makes the side that
employs it directly wrong, and as much as we may
pity we cannot approve the headstrong and intolerant
zeal of its adherents.

Can you conceive, O Irishmen ! a happy state of
society— conceive men of every way of thinking
living together like brothers ? The descendant of the
greatest prince would then be entitled to no more
respect than the son of a peasant. There would be no
pomp and no parade ; but that which the rich now
keep to themselves would then be distributed among
the people. None would be in magnificence, but the
superfluities then taken from the rich would be sufficient

AN ADDRESS TO THE IRISH PEOPLE. 207

when spread abroad to make every one comfortable.
No lover would then be false to his mistress, no mistress
could desert her lover. No friend would play false ;
no rents, no debts, no taxes, no frauds of any kind
would disturb the general happiness : good as they
would be, wise as they would be, they would be daily
getting better and wiser. No beggars would exist,
nor any of those wretched women who are now reduced
to a state of the most horrible misery and vice by men
whose wealth makes them villainous and hardened;
no thieves or murderers, because poverty would never
drive men to take away comforts from another when
he had enough for himself. Vice and misery, pomp and
poverty, power and obedience, would then be banished
altogether. It is for such a state as this, Irishmen,
that I exhort you to prepare. " A camel shall as soon
pass through the eye of a needle, as a rich man enter
the kingdom of heaven." This is not to be understood
literally. Jesus Christ appears to me only to have
meant that riches have generally the effect of hardening
and vitiating the heart ; so has poverty. I think
those people then are very silly, and cannot see one
inch beyond their noses, who say that human nature is
depraved ; when at the same time wealth and poverty,
those two great sources of crime, fall to the lot of a
great majority of people ; and when they see that
people in moderate circumstances are always most wise
and good. People say that poverty is no evil : they
have never felt it, or they would not think so ; that
wealth is necessary to encourage the arts — but are not
the arts very inferior things to virtue and happiness ? —
the man would be very dead to all generous feelings who
would rather see pretty pictures and statues than a
million free and happy men.

208 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

It will be said that my design is to make you dis-
satisfied witK your present condition, and that I wish
to raise a Rebellion. But how stupid and sottish must
those men be who think that violence and uneasiness of
mind have anything to do with forwarding the views of
peace, harmony, and happiness. They should know
that nothing was so well fitted to produce slavery,
tyranny, and vice as the violence which is attributed
to the friends of liberty, and which the real friends of
liberty are the only persons who disdain. As to your
being dissatisfied with your present condition, anything
that I may say is certainly not likely to increase that
dissatisfaction. I have advanced nothing concerning
your situation but its real case ; but what may be proved
to be true. I defy any one to point out a falsehood
that I have uttered in the course of this Address. It
is impossible but the blindest among you must see
that everything is not right. This sight has often
pressed some of the poorest among you to take some-
thing from the rich man's store by violence, to relieve
his own necessities. I cannot justify, but I can pity him.
I cannot pity the fruits of the rich man's intempe-
rance. I suppose some are to be found who will
justify him. This sight has often brought home to a
day-labourer the truth which I wish to impress upon
you that all is not right. But I do not merely wish to
convince you that our present state is bad, but that
its alteration for the better depends on your own
exertions and resolutions.

But he has never found out the method of mending
it who does not first mend his own conduct, and then
prevail upon others to refrain from any vicious habits
which they may have contracted, much less does the
poor man suppose that wisdom as well as virtue is

AN ADDRESS TO THE IRISH PEOPLE. 209

necessary, and that the employing his little time in
reading and thinking, is really doing all that he has
in his power to do towards the state, when pain and vice
shall perish altogether.

I wish to impress upon your minds that without virtue
or wisdom there can be no liberty or happiness ; and
that temperance, sobriety, charity, and independence of
soul will give you virtue, as thinking, inquiring,
reading, and talking will give you wisdom. Without
the first the last is of little use, and without the last
the first is a dreadful curse to yourselves and others.

I have told you what I think upon this subject,
because I wish to produce in your minds an awe and
caution necessary, before the happy state of which I
have spoken can be introduced. This cautious awe is
very different from the prudential fear which leads
you to consider yourself as the first object, as, on the
contrary, it is full of that warm and ardent love for
others that burns in your hearts, O Irishmen ! and
from which I have fondly hoped to light a flame that
may illumine and invigorate the world.

I have said that the rich command and the poor
obey, and that money is only a kind of sign which
shows that according to government the rich man has
a right to command the poor man, or rather that the
poor man being urged by having no money to get
bread, is forced to work for the rich man, which
amounts to the same thing. I have said that I think
all this very wrong, and that I wish the whole business
was altered. I have also said that we can expect
little amendment in our own time, and that we must
be contented to lay the foundation of liberty and
happiness by virtue and wisdom. This then shall be
my work ; let this be yours, Irishmen. Never shall that

p

2TO PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

glory fail, which I am anxious that you shall deserve —
the glory of teaching to a world the first lessons of
virtue and wisdom.

Let poor men still continue to work. I do not wish
to hide from them a knowledge of their relative con-
dition in society, I esteem it next [to] impossible to do
so. Let the work of the labourer, of the artificer — let
the work of every one, however employed, still be
exerted in its accustomed way. The public communi-
cation of this truth ought in no manner to impede
the established usages of society, however it is fitted
in the end to do them away. For this reason it ought
not to impede them, because if it did, a violent and unac-
customed and sudden sensation [cessation ?] would take
place in all ranks of men, which would bring on violence
and destroy the possibility of the event of that which
in its own nature must be gradual however rapid, and
rational however warm. It is founded on the reform
of private men, and without individual amendment* it
is vain and foolish to expect the amendment of a state
or government. I would advise them, therefore, whose
feelings this Address may have succeeded in affecting
(and surely those feelings which charitable and tempe-
rate remarks excite can never be violent and intole-
rant), if they be, as I hope those whom poverty has
compelled to class themselves in the lower orders of
society, that they will as usual attend to their business
and the discharge of those public or private duties
which custom has ordained. Nothing can be more
rash and thoughtless than to show in ourselves singular
instances of any particular doctrine before the general
mass of the people are so convinced by the reasons of
the doctrine, that it will be no longer singular. That
reasons as well as feelings may help the establishment

AN ADDRESS TO THE IRISH PEOPLE. 211

of happiness and liberty, on the basis of wisdom and
virtue, be our aim and intention. Let us not be led
into any means which are unworthy of this end, nor, as
so much depends upon yourselves, let us cease carefully
to watch over our conduct, that when we talk of
reform it be not objected to us, that reform ought to
begin at home. In the interval that public or private
duties and necessary labours allow, husband your time
so that you may do to others and yourselves the most
real good. To improve your own minds is to join
these two views; conversation and reading are the
principal and chief methods of awaking the mind to
knowledge and goodness. Reading or thought will
principally bestow the former of these — the benevolent
exercise of the powers of the mind in communicating
useful knowledge will bestow an habit of the latter :
both united will contribute so far as lies in your indi-
vidual power to that great reform which will be per-
fect and finished the moment every one is virtuous
and wise. Every folly refuted, every bad habit con-
quered, every good one confirmed, are so much gained
in this great and excellent cause.

To begin to reform the government is immediately
necessary, however good or bad individuals may be;
it is the more necessary, if they are eminently the
latter, in some degree to palliate or do away [with ?] the
cause, as political institution has even [ever ?] the
greatest influence on the human character, and is that
alone which differences the Turk from the Irishman.

I write now not only with a view for Catholic
Emancipation, but for universal emancipation; and
this emancipation complete and unconditional, that
shall comprehend every individual of whatever nation
or principles, that shall fold in its embrace all that

2 , 2 PEXCT £ YSSHE S&ELLEY.

think and all that feel: the Catholic cause is subor-
dinate, and its success preparatory to this great cause,
which adheres to no sect but society, to no cause but
that of universal happiness, to no party but the people.
I desire Catholic Emancipation, but I desire not to
stop here; and I hope there are few who having
perused the preceding arguments who will not concur
with me in desiring a complete, a lasting, and a happy
amendment. That all steps however good and salu-
tary which may be taken, all reforms consistent with
the English constitution that may be effectuated, can
only be subordinate and preparatory to the great
and lasting one which shall bring about the peace,
the harmony, and the happiness of Ireland, England,
Europe, the World. I offer merely an outline of that
picture which your own hopes may gift with the
colours of reality.

Government will not allow a peaceable and reason-
able discussion of its principles by any association of
men who assemble for that express purpose. But
have not human beings a right to assemble to talk
upon what subject they please ? Can anything be more
evident than that as government is only of use as it
conduces to the happiness of the governed, those who
are governed have a right to talk on the efficacy of
the safeguard employed for their benefit? Can any topic
be more interesting or useful than on [one ?] discussing
how far the means of government is or could be
made in a higher degree effectual to producing the
end? Although I deprecate violence, and the cause
which depends for its influence on force, yet I can by
no means think that assembling together merely lfo
talk of how things go on — I can by no means think
that societies formed for talking on any subject,

AN ADDRESS TO THE IRISH PEOPLE. 313

however Government may dislike them, come in any
way under the head of force or violence — I think
that associations conducted in the spirit of sobriety,
regularity, and thought are one of the best and most
efficient of those means which I would recdmmend
for the production of happiness, liberty, and virtue.

Are you slaves or are you men ? If slaves, then
crouch to the rod and lick the feet of your op-
pressors ; glory [in ?] your shame : it will become you, if
brutes, to act according to your nature. But you are
men : a real man is free, so far as circumstances will
permit him. Then firmly yet quietly resist. When
one cheek is struck, turn the other to the insulting
coward. You will be truly brave : you will resist and
conquer. The discussion of any subject is a right
that you have brought into the world with your heart
and tongue. Resign your heart's blood before you
part with this inestimable privilege of man. For it
is* fit that the governed should inquire into the pro-
ceedings of government, which is of no use the moment
it is conducted on any other principle but that of
safety. You have much to think of. Is war neces-
sary to your happiness and safety ? The interests of
the poor gain nothing from the wealth or extension of
a nation's boundaries, they gain nothing from glory, a
word that has often served as a cloak to the ambition
or avarice of statesmen. The barren victories of
Spain, gained in behalf of a bigoted and tyrannical
government, are nothing to them. The conquests in
India, by which England has gained glory indeed,
but a glory which is not more honourable than that
of Buonaparte, are nothing to them. The poor pur-
chase this glory and this wealth at the expense of
their blood and labour and happiness and virtue.

214

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

They die in battle for this infernal cause. Their
labour supplies money and food for carrying it into
effect; their happiness is destroyed by the oppression
they undergo; their virtue is rooted out by the de-
pravity and vice that prevail throughout the army,
and which under the present system are perfectly un-
avoidable. Who does not know that the quartering of
a regiment on any town will soon destroy the inno-
cence and happiness of its inhabitants ? The advocates
for the happiness and liberty of the great mass of the
people, who pay for war with their lives and labour,
ought never to cease writing and speaking until nations
* see, as they must feel, the folly of fighting and killing
each other in uniform for nothing at all. Ye have
much to think of. The state of your representation in
the House, which is called the collective representation
of the country, demands your attention.

It is horrible that the lower classes must waste their
lives and liberty to furnish means for their oppressors
to oppress them yet more terribly. It is horrible that
the poor must give in taxes what would save them and
their families from hunger and cold ; — it is still more
horrible that they should do this to furnish further
means of their own abjectedness and misery. But
what words can express the enormity of the abuse that
prevents them from choosing representatives with
authority to inquire into the manner in which ' their
lives and labour, their happiness and innocence, are
expended, and what advantages result from their ex-
penditure which may counterbalance so horrible and
monstrous an evil ? There is an outcry raised against
amendment ; it is called innovation and condemned
by many unthinking people who have a good fire and
plenty to eat and drink. Hard-hearted or thought-

AN ADDRESS TO THE IRISH PEOPLE. 715

less beings, how many are famishing whilst you
deliberate, how many perish to contribute to your
pleasures ? I hope that there are none such as these
native Irishmen, indeed I scarcely believe that there
are.

Let the object of your associations (for I conceal
not my approval of assemblies conducted with regu-
larity, peaceableness, and thought for any purpose) be
the amendment of these abuses, it will have for its
object universal emancipation, liberty, happiness, and
virtue. There is yet another subject, " the Liberty of
the Press." The liberty of the Press consists in a right
to publish any opinion on any subject which the*
writer may entertain. The Attorney-General in
1793, on tne ^ri3^ °f Mr. Percy, said, " I never will
dispute the right of any man fully to discuss topics
respecting Government, and honestly to point out what
he may consider a proper remedy of grievances." The
liberty of the Press is placed as a sentinel to alarm
us when any attempt is made on our liberties. It is
this sentinel, oh, Irishmen, whom I now awaken ! I
create to myself a freedom which exists not. There

is no liberty of the Press for the subjects of British
j j

government. f t

It is really ridiculous to hear people yet boasting
of this inestimable blessing, when they daily see it
successfully muzzled and outraged by the lawyers
of the Crown, and by virtue of what are called ex-
officio informations. Blackstone says, that " if a person
publishes what is improper, mischievous, or illegal, he
must take the consequences, of his own temerity/'
And Lord Chief Baron Comyns defines libel as " a
contumely, or reproach, published to the defamation
of the Government., of a magistrate, or of a private

2 r 6 PERCY B YSSHE SHELLEY.

person." Now I beseech you to consider the words
mischievous, improper, illegal, contumely, reproach,
or defamation. May they not make that mischievous
or improper which they please ? Is not law with
them as clay in the potter's hand? Do not the
words contumely, reproach, or defamation express all
degrees and forces of disapprobation ? It is impossible
to express yourself displeased at certain proceedings of
Government, or the individuals who conduct it, with-
out uttering a reproach. We cannot honestly point
out a proper remedy of grievances with safety, because
the very mention of these grievances will be reproach-
• ful to the personages who countenance them ; and
therefore will come under a definition of libel. For
the persons who thus directly or indirectly undergo
reproach, will say for their own sakes that the ex-
posure of their corruption is mischievous and im-
proper ; therefore the utterer of the reproach is a fit
subject for three years' imprisonment. Is there any-
thing like the liberty of the Press in restrictions so
positive yet pliant as these ? The little freedom
which we enjoy in this most important point comes
from the clemency of our rulers, or their fear lest
public opinion, alarmed at the discovery of its enslaved
state, should violently assert a right to extension and
diffusion. Yet public opinion may not always be so
formidable, rulers may not always be so merciful or
so timid ; at any rate, evils, and great evils, do result
from the present system of intellectual slavery, and
you have enough to think of if this grievance alone
remained in the constitution of society. I will give
but one instance of the present state of our Press.

A countryman of yours is now confined in an
English gaol. His health, his fortune, his spirits

AN ADDRESS TO THE IRISH PEOPLE. 317

suffer from close confinement. The air which comes
through the bars of a prison -grate does not invigorate
the frame nor cheer the spirits. But Mr. Finnerty,
much as he has lost, yet retains the fair name of truth
and honour. He was imprisoned for persisting in the
truth. His judge told him on his trial that truth and
falsehood were indifferent to the law, and that if he
owned the publication, any consideration whether the
facts that it related were well or ill-founded, was
totally irrelevant. Such is the libel law : such the
liberty of the Press — there is enough to think of. The
right of withholding your individual assent to war,
the right of choosing delegates to represent you in the '
assembly of the nation, and that of freely opposing in-
tellectual power to any measure of Government of
which you may disapprove, are, in addition to the
indifference with which the Legislative and the Execu-
tive power ought to rule their conduct towards pro-
fessors of every religion, enough to think of.

I earnestly desire peace and harmony : — peace, that
whatever wrongs you may have suffered, benevolence
and a spirit of forgiveness should mark your conduct
towards those who have persecuted you : — harmony,
that among yourselves may be no divisions, that Pro-
testants and Catholics unite in a common interest, and
that whatever be the belief and principles of your
countryman and fellow sufferer, you desire to benefit
his cause at the same time that you vindicate your
own. Be strong and unbiassed by selfishness or pre-
judice — for, Catholics, your religion has not been
spotless, crimes in past ages have sullied it with a
stain, which let it be your glory to remove. Nor,
Protestants, hath your religion always been charac-
terized by the mildness of benevolence which Jesus

2 18 PERCY B TSSHE SHELLEY.

Christ recommended. Had it anything to do with
the present subject I could account for the spirit of
intolerance which marked both religions ; I will, how-
ever, only adduce the fact, and earnestly exhort you to
root out from your own minds everything which may
lead to uncharitableness, and to reflect that yourselves
as well as your brethren may be deceived. Nothing
on earth is infallible. The priests that pretend to it
are wicked and mischievous impostors ; but it is an
imposture which every one more or less assumes who
encourages prejudice in his breast against those who
differ from him in opinion, or who sets up his own
religion as the only right and true one, when no one
is so blind as to see that every religion is right and
true which makes men beneficent and sincere. I
therefore earnestly exhort both Protestants and
Catholics to act in brotherhood and harmony, never
forgetting because the Catholics alone are heinously
deprived of religious rights, that the Protestants and
a certain rank of people of every persuasion, share
with them all else that is terrible, galling, and intole-
rable in the mass of political grievance.

In no case employ violence or falsehood. I cannot
too often or too vividly endeavour to impress upon
your minds that these methods will produce nothing
but wretchedness and slavery — that they will at the
same time rivet the fetters with which ignorance and
oppression bind you to abjectness, and deliver you over
to a tyranny which shall render you incapable of
renewed efforts. Violence will immediately render
your cause a bad one. If you believe in a provi-
dential God, you must also believe that he is a good
one. And it is not likely a merciful God would
befriend a bad cause. Insincerity is no less hurtful

AN ADDRESS TO THE IRISH PEOPLE. 219

than violence; those who are in the habit of either,
would do well to reform themselves. A lying bravo
will never promote the good of his country — he can-
not be a good man. The courageous and sincere may
at the same time successfully oppose corruption, by
uniting their voice with that of others, or individually
raise up intellectual opposition to counteract the
abuses of Government and society. In order to bene-
fit yourselves and your country to any extent, habits
of sobriety, regularity, and thought are previously so
necessary, that without these preliminaries all that you
have done falls to the ground. You have built on sand ;
secure a good foundation and you may erect a fabric
to stand for ever — the glory and the envy of the world.

I have purposely avoided any lengthened discussion
on those grievances to which your hearts are from
custom and the immediate interest of the circum-
stances, probably most alive at present. I have not,
however, wholly neglected them. Most of all have I
insisted on their instant palliation and ultimate re-
moval ; nor have I omitted a consideration of the
means which I deem most effectual for the accomplish-
ment of this great end. How far you will consider
the former worthy of your adoption, so far shall I
deem the latter probable and interesting to the lovers
of human kind. And I have opened to your view a
new scene — does not your heart bound at the bare
possibility of your posterity possessing that liberty
and happiness of which during our lives powerful
exertions and habitual abstinence may give us a fore-
taste ? Oh ! if your hearts do not vibrate at such as
this, then ye are dead and cold — ye are not men.

I now come to the application of my principles,
the conclusion of my Address ; and, O Irishmen, what-

22o PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

ever conduct ye may feel yourselves bound to pursue,
tlie path which duty points to lies before me clear and
unobscured. Dangers may lurk around it, but they
are not the dangers which lie beneath the footsteps of
the hypocrite or temporizer.

For I have not presented to you the picture of hap-
piness on which my fancy doats as an uncertain meteor
to mislead honourable enthusiasm, or blindfold the
judgment which makes virtue useful. I have not
proposed crude schemes, which I should be incompe-
tent to mature, or desired to excite in you any virulence
against the abuses of political institution ; where I have
had occasion to point them out, I have recommended
moderation whilst yet I have earnestly insisted upon
energy and perseverance ; I have spoken of peace, yet
declared that resistance is laudable ; but the intel-
lectual resistance which I recommend, I deem essential
to the introduction of the millennium of virtue, whose
period every one can, so far as he is concerned, forward
by his own proper power. I have not attempted to
show that the Catholic claims, or the claims of the
people to a full representation in Parliament, or any
of these claims to real rights, which I have insisted
upon as introductory to the ultimate claim of all, to
universal happiness, freedom, and equality ; I have not
attempted, I say, to show that these can be granted
consistently with the spirit of the English Constitu-
tion ;* this is a point which I do not feel myself in-
clined to discuss, and which I consider foreign to my

* The excellence of the Constitution of Great Britain appears
to me to be its indefiniteness and versatility, whereby it may
be unresistingly accommodated to the progression of wisdom
and virtue. Such accommodation I desire ; but I wish for the cause
before the effect.

AN ADDRESS TO THE IRISH PEOPLE. it\

subject. But I have shown that these claims have
for their basis truth and justice, which are immutable,
and which in the ruin of governments shall rise like
a phoenix from their ashes.

Is any one inclined to dispute the possibility of
a happy change in society? Do they say that the
nature of man is corrupt, and that he was made for
misery and wickedness ? Be it so. Certain as are
opposite conclusions, I will concede the truth of this
for a moment. What are the means which I take for
melioration ? Violence, corruption, rapine, crime ?
Do I do evil that good may come ? I have recom-
mended peace, philanthropy, wisdom. So far as my
arguments influence, they will influence to these ; and if
there is any one noiv inclined to say that " private
vices are public benefits," and that peace, philan-
thropy, and wisdom will, if once they gain ground,
ruin the human race, he may revel in his happy
dreams ; though were / this man I should envy Satan's
hell. The wisdom and charity of which I speak
are the only means which I will countenance for the
redress of your grievances and the grievances of the
world. So far aa they operate, I am willing to stand
responsible for their evil effects. I expect to be ac-
cused of a desire for renewing in Ireland the scenes of
revolutionary horror which marked the struggles of
France twenty years ago. But it is the renewal of that
unfortunate era which I strongly deprecate, and which
the tendency of this Address is calculated to obviate.
For can burthens be borne for ever, and the slave
crouch and cringe the while ? Is misery and vice so
consonant to man's nature that he will hug it to his
heart ? But when the wretched one in bondage
beholds the emancipation near, will he not endure his

222 PERCY B YSSHE SHELLEY.

misery awhile with hope and patience, then spring to
his preserver's arms, and start into a man ?

It is my intention to observe the effect on your
minds, O Irishmen, which this Address, dictated
by the fervency of my love and hope, will produce. I
have come to this country to spare no pains where
expenditure may purchase you real benefit. The
present is a crisis which of all others is the most valu-
able for fixing the fluctuation of public feeling ; as far
as my poor efforts may have succeeded in fixing- it to
virtue, Irishmen, so far shall I esteem myself happy.
I intend this Address as introductory to another. The
organization of a society whose institution shall serve
as a bond to its members for the purposes of virtue,
happiness, liberty, and wisdom, by the means of intel-
lectual opposition to grievances, would probably be
useful. For the formation of such society I avow
myself anxious.

Adieu, my friends ! May every sun that shines on
your green island see the annihilation of an abuse,
and the birth of an embryou of melioration ! Your
own hearts — may they become the shrines of purity
and freedom, and never may smoke to the Mammon of
unrighteousness ascend from the unpolluted altar of
their devotion !

No. 7, Lower Sackville Street, Feb. 22nd.

POSTSCRIPT.

I have now been a week in Dublin, during which
time I have endeavoured to make myself more accurately
acquainted with the state of the public mind on those
great topics of grievances which induced me to select

AN ADDRESS TO TEE IRISH PEOPLE. 223

Ireland as a theatre, the widest and fairest, for the
operations of the determined friend of religious and
political freedom.

The result of my observations has determined me to
propose an association for the purposes of restoring
Ireland to the prosperity which she possessed before
the Union Act ; and the religious freedom which the
involuntarioess of faith ought to have taught all
monopolists of Heaven long, long ago, that every one
had a right to possess.

For the purpose of obtaining the emancipation of
the Catholics from the penal laws that aggrieve them,
and a repeal of the Legislative Union Act, and
grounding upon the remission of the church-craft and
oppression, which caused these grievances ; a plan of
amendment and regeneration in the moral and political
state of society, on a comprehensive and systematic phil-
anthropy which shall be sure though slow in its pro-
jects ; and as it is without the rapidity and danger
of revolution, so will it be devoid of the time-servingness
of temporizing reform — which in its deliberate capacity,
having investigated the state of the Government of
England, shall oppose those parts of it, by intellectual
force, which will not bear the touchstone of reason.

For information respecting the principles which I
possess, and the nature and spirit of the association
which I propose, I refer the reader to a small pamphlet,
which I shall publish on the subject in the course of
a few days.

I have published the above Address (written in
England) in the cheapest possible form, and have taken
pains that the remarks which it contains should be
intelligible to the most uneducated minds. Men are
not slaves and brutes because they are poor; it has

224 PERCY BTSSHE SHELLEY.

been the policy of the thoughtless or wicked of the
higher ranks (as a proof of the decay of which policy
I am happy to see the rapid success of a comparatively
enlightened system of education) to conceal from the
poor the truths which I have endeavoured to teach them.
In doing so I have but translated my thoughts into
another language ; and as language is only useful
as it communicates ideas, I shall think my style so
far good as it is successful as a means to bring about
the end which I desire on any occasion to accomplish.

A Limerick paper, which I suppose professes to sup-
port certain loyal and John Bullish principles of freedom,
has in an essay for advocating the liberty of the Press
the following clause : " For lawless licence of dis-
cussion never did we advocate, nor do we now." What
is lawless licence of discussion ? Is it not as indefinite
as the words contumely, reproach, defamation, that
allow at present such latitude to the outrages that are
committed on the free expression of individual senti-
ment ? Can they not see that what is rational will
stand by its reason, and what is true stand by its truth,
as all that is foolish will fall by its folly, and all that
is false be controverted by its own falsehood ? Liberty
gains nothing by the reform of politicians of this stamp,
any more than it gains from a change of Ministers in
London. What at present is contumely and defama-
tion, would at the period of this Limerick amendment
be " lawless licence of discussion," and such would be
the mighty advantage which this doughty champion of
liberty proposes to effect.

I conclude with the words of Lafayette, a name en-
deared by its peerless bearer to every lover of the human
race, " For a nation to love liberty it is sufficient that she
knows it, to be free it is sufficient that she wills it."

CHAPTER IX.

HP HE allusion towards the end of this Address to
Peter Finnerty who had been then twelve months
a prisoner in the Castle of Lincoln, will arrest the
attention of all readers who remember the singular
story I have told of the poem which Shelley had pub-
lished for his benefit a year before. It shows that his
interest in him was undiminished, and strengthens
the suggestion I have thrown out, that in the volume
of poems which Shelley had proposed to publish in
Dublin, The Poetical Essay on the Existing State of
Things would have been included.

The Limerick paper which Shelley sarcastically aU
ludes to as proposing " to support certain loyal and John
Bullish principles of freedom," was The Limerick Evening
Post, then recently established. The article was re-
printed in The Dublin Freeman s Journal, Tuesday,
February 1 8th, 1812, where Shelley must have seen it.
It is thus introduced : —

" IRISH PRESS. — The following judicious observations
we have extracted from a newly established paper in
Limerick — namely, The Limerick Evening Post"

Shelley it is evident formed a very different estimate
of this article. He considered it lacked spirit. It is
plain that at this period he thought it extremely
probable that his own pamphlets which were about
to appear would have to bear the brunt of a government
prosecution. He must therefore have considered it

Q

726 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

rather unfortunate that a Liberal paper thus eulogized
by a metropolitan journal of influence should, as it
were, encourage the Executive in limiting the right of
public discussion on political questions.

The opening passages which provoked his comment
may be given as a specimen of the article thus preserved
from oblivion by the quotation of the poet : —

" The prosecutions so perseveringly continued
against the Press of Ireland — against the journals of
the capital, deserving, we think, that title by pre-
eminence, must anxiously interest every reflecting mind
— every feeling heart. So generally allowed and
axiomatically fixed is the grand right of a Free Press —
in other words, of free thought and free discussion —
that the greatest enemies of that greatest bulwark of
human privileges never dared to assail it but in disguise
— but under some factious colourable principle ; its
bitterest foes, at least since the days of the Star
Chamber, have uniformly avowed themselves as friends.
For lawless licence of discussion never yet did we
advocate, nor do we now/'' &c.

Whether the paper made any reply to the observa-
tions of Shelley it is now impossible to say : its very
name is almost forgotten in Limerick, although some
files of it of a much later date are still preserved
in the library of the Royal Dublin Society.

The next important movement made by Shelley in
his Dublin crusade took place three days after the
publication of his Address to the Irish People. That
pamphlet had appeared on Tuesday, the 25th of
February, 1812, and on the Friday following, the 28th
of the same month, the long announced Aggregate
Meeting of the Catholics of Ireland took place in the

THE CATHOLIC COMMITTEE. 227

historic little theatre in Fishamble Street; Shelley at-
tended that meeting, and spoke to an important
resolution for the space of an hour. An outline of
that speech, taken from three different reports in con-
temporary journals, as well as his own remarks upon
it extracted from one of his unpublished letters, will be
given in due course.

To understand the position of affairs at that period,
and to show the absolute impossibility (even had he
been more guarded in the expression of his anti-religious
fanaticism) of being able to establish a new political
association in Dublin when the Government was abso-
lutely discussing the expediency of suppressing this
one solitary meeting, it will be necessary to take a
brief review of the attitude both of the Catholics and
of the Executive. This is founded principally on
original documents preserved among the State Papers
in the Record Office.

The insidious promises held out to the Catholics at the
time of the Union had been abandoned, and a system of
still stricter and more unconstitutional coercion perse-
vered in. The Catholics were rapidly increasing in
number and in wealth. Headed by every man of rank and
by most of the men of talent of their own communion,
and generously assisted by many enlightened Protestants
of character and position, they were gradually forming
into that compact organization which eventually
triumphed. The powerful mind and the indomitable
energy of O'Connell had already made themselves felt.
The body known as the " Catholic Committee" was
formed, which very soon attracted to itself the notice of
the Government. It had no secrets. Had there been any-
thing to conceal, dishonest and mercenary instruments
were not wanting to betray it. The State Papers un-

Q 3

^S PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

fortunately supply abundant proof of this treachery. '
"VVellesley Pole, writing from Dublin Castle on the 19th
of October, 1811, to the Right Hon. Richard Ryder,
Secretary of State for the Home Department, in rei
ference to one of the Meetings of the Committee, says,
"I send you a report from one of our spies/' The report
is enclosed, signed "F. W." There is in the Record Office
an elaborate paper consisting of twenty-six quarto pageS,
written closely on both sides, which is in part a coni-
plete history of the Catholic Committee for three years.
It is called " Precis of the Formation and Proceedings of
the Catholic Committee in Ireland, 1809, 1810, 18 if/*
Referring to 1 8 1 o we have the following allusion to Mr.
Peter Finnerty, the object of Shelley's poetical sympathy
in 1811 : —

" On the 2nd of November, 1810, an aggregate
meeting took place : Mr. Finnerty recommended a
Petition to Parliament for the Catholic Emancipation,
one for Parliamentary Reform, and one for the
Repeal of the Union. The thanks of the meeting
were voted to Mr. Finnerty, and it was resolved, That
the Catholic Committee should have the sole management
of Catholic affairs.3'

Another entry in the same Precis is as follows : —
"On the 9th of July (1811) the aggregate meeting
assembled at the Private Theatre, Fi shamble Street : it
was very numerous/' Among other resolutions it Was
resolved, " That the Committee be appointed ; that the
Catholic Peers, Baronets, and the survivors of 1 793 have
the management of Catholic affairs ; that 500^. be given
to Mr. Hay (the Secretary); 500^. to Mr. W. Todd Jones;
and that a subscription be made for Mr. Finnerty/'

The speech made by Mr. Finnerty at the Catholic

LETTER OF MR. WELLESLEY POLE. 229

meeting referred to in the first of these extracts, is a
memorable one. But for it, Mr. Wellesley Pole in-
formed the Imperial Parliament on the 4th of March
1811, the Convention Act would not have been
enforced in Ireland, and the proclamation of the Duke
of Richmond would not have been issued. The speech
was delivered at an adjourned meeting of the Catholics
held at the Repository in St. Stephen's Green, Dublin,
on Friday the 2nd of November, 1810. This speech
was delivered at the request of the meeting, and pro-
duced immense enthusiasm, and, what was more daiige^
rous in the eyes of Mr. Wellesley Pole, unanimity.

Mr. Wellesley Pole subsequently notified to the
Secretary of State that a subscription had been opened
in Dublin for Mr. Finuerty. The following extract
is taken from a letter in the Record Office : —

*» f! i- T TO -r ! 'if/ -r »T

Ireland, 1811, January to June. No. 652.

" Young Mr. Curran, son of the Master of the
Rolls, has been very active in soliciting from the
Catholics subscriptions for Mr. Finnerty, and letters
from persons associated in London for promoting that
object have been addressed to the Catholics here.
" I have the honour to be,

" &c. &c. &c.

" W. W. POLE.
" The Right Honourable Richard Ryder."

The speech of Mr. Finnerty formed the subject of
debate in the House of Commons, March 4th, 1811.
The debate is fully reported in the Examiner, March
loth. Mr. Finnerty's speech is given at great length
in The Dublin Weekly Messenger, November loth,
1810. A copy of the first two volumes of that paper

^ PEROT BYSSHE SHELLEY.

is preserved in the library of Trinity College, Dublin.
In a tract entitled Proceedings of the Catholic Com-
mittee, as taken from their Accredited Papers, Dublin,
181 1, a report of the speech fills ten pages.

A more formidable personage than Mr. Peter Fin-
nerty was at this time also under the watchful eye of
Mr. Wellesley Pole.* In a letter dated " Irish Office,
March nth, i8n/' he sends to the Home Secretary,
the Right Hon. Richard Ryder, a lengthy report of
the proceedings at " the Aggregate Meeting of the
Catholics held in Dublin on Friday last, the 8th in-
stant/' Towards the end of it Mr. O'Connell is
alluded to in the following words : —

" It would appear from Mr. O'ConnelPs speech as
if a repeal of the Legislative Union was now become
as serious an object to the Catholic Managers as
general Emancipation. He expressed himself thus,
' That the country had been involved in deep calamity
ever since the baneful measure of the Union had been
forced upon distracted Ireland/ * This passage, it may

* There is a still earlier allusion to Mr. O'Connell, and to the
demand for a Repeal of the Union, in the State Papers. It is a
private report of the Aggregate Meeting, September i8th, 1810.
The document is marked " Enclosure No. 2 :" —

" Hutton, a trader (brother to the late Alderman), of the Pres-
byterian Party, moved a petition to the King to insist on the
Repeal of the Union.

" Counsellor O'Connell seconded the motion (he is a Catholic).
Motion carried unanimously." The only names given in this
private report are those of Hutton, MacNally, and O'Connell.
The following observation is added : — " The people who have en-
gaged in this business will persevere, and they ought to be attended
to — they ought to be watched." The benevolent gentleman who
gave this advice seems to have been a certain Mr. " T. Mulock." —
[Ireland, 1810. August to December. No. 648.]

SECRET AGENTS OF THE GOVERNMENT. 231

be remarked, reads amazingly like that which. Shelley
subsequently wrote in the advertisement of his first
pamphlet. In language stronger than that of Mr.
O'Connell, but yet resembling it, he calls the Union
Act " the most successful engine that England ever
wielded over the misery of fallen Ireland/' Mr. Pole,
in the continuation of his letter to Mr. Ryder, thus
refers to one of that useful class whom he had in.
more direct but less elegant language called
" spies :" —

" One of the most intelligent and secret agents
employed by the Irish Government states, that in
his judgment their last meeting and debate has most
evidently depressed the Protestant party, who have
opposed the claims of the Catholics, and has increased
their Protestant advocates. Many Protestants were
present, and the Theatre was full in every part. It is
remarkable, however, that there was no crowd at the
door : great pains having been taken, particularly by
the Catholic clergy, to keep the lower orders from
attending in the streets.

" I have the honour to be, &c. &c.,

{( W. W. POLE.

" Right Honourable Richard Ryder."*

The morning of Friday the 28th of February, 1812,
must have been an exciting one for the three propagan-
dists of philanthropy — Shelley, Harriet, and Eliza West-
brook, as they met together in the drawing-room of
No. 7, Lower Sackville Street, Dublin. The youthful
Shelley was on that day to present himself before an

* From State Papers, "Ireland, 1811, January to June.
No. 652."

>3> .-«fiBff.«Mifiaw«BK

immense assembly, and to put to the test his power of
addressing or influencing an audience. The ladies we
may be sure had determined to accompany him to the
meeting, and with all her confidence in the ability of
Percy, we cau have little doubt that the gentle
Harriet was full of anxiety as to his success. The
presence of ladies at these great gatherings of the
rank and talent of the Irish Catholics was one of
their most attractive features. The following descrip-
tion of a meeting which took place a year before
may serve for that at which Shelley spoke, and we
have no doubt Harriet listened :—

" Fishamble Street Theatre, where the receif l^P
gregate Meeting of the Roman Catholics was held irT
Dublin," says the Morning Chronicle of March j4th,
iSnf "was brilliantly illuminated, and had a most
interesting effect. The boxes were filled with ladies
full dressed, and the whole is represented as having a
very imposing effect. The presence of their fair country-
women was certainly calculated to prolong the discus-
sion, as the orators were all anxious to display their
eloquence to the greatest advantage/'

Fishamble Street Theatre, where Shelley spoke and
Handel played, where the deep tones of O'Connell's
wonderful voice so often roused and controlled the
people ; the scene of so much festivity, the centre of so
many recollections, is now levelled to the ground, but
a slight sketch of its history may not be uninteresting.

The street itself, like that

ausiY °* ?iiJka 4 i! II OTK^'jiTl Ic "may 1&Q3 9/^ ^° ^/o^'* & nl *
" Where London's column, towering to the skies, >r.fiofuo*ii<I

Like a tall bully lifts its head — and lies,"

II 4";..

', e,kU if r'bf« msteB'jsifjuos Blifr no o«H3«y;cr Bsrfoifi OB "io Hoijioq

derives its name from being the place where fish was

FISH A MBLE STREET, DVBLW. ,33

exposed for sale to the citizens. In old municipal
documents the Dublin Fish-shamble Street is frequently
styled " Vicus Piscariorum."* The boats could lie at
the river's bank at the foot of the street, which rises
in a zigzag direction, like the walls of a fortress, to the
top of the slight hill or elevation on which " the Castle
still stands " From its vicinity to the Cathedral of
the Holy Trinity or Christ Church, to the Courts of
Law, and to the Castle, Fishamble Street occupied
an important position in the old city. The names of
several famous hostelries are connected with it, in
which for many years various clubs, musical, masonic,
or simply convivial, were in the habit of assembling.
The Protestant parish church of St. John still stands
midway on the western side of the street, and nearly
opposite to it, divided from Fishamble Street by a
short and narrow lane, is the Catholic Church of SS<
Michael and John, built upon the foundations of the
celebrated Smock-alley Theatre. f In the first named
Church of St. John, on the 3rd of July, 1746, was
baptized a child destined to be for ever memorable in
the history of Ireland — Henry Grattan — whose father
and grandfather had long been residents in the then
flourishing, but now desolate and still decaying Fish-
amble Street. Five years before the birth of Henry
Grattan, the building first called the new Music Hall,
but subsequently the Private Theatre, was erected. The
building owed its existence to the necessities of a
SfliJgaiaJuiiiiJ od ion vsm vmJsiif art 'to jlote^g in^rla a
- - .-ilj 93(ii toJi Jdtfrta

* In a record of the ipth year of Kichard II. it is called "Vicus
Piscatorius, in parochia Sancti Johannis."

t " The only vestige now existing of Smock-alley Theatre is a
portion of an arched passage on the south-eastern side of this
church." — GILBEBT'S History of Dublin, vol. ii. p. in.

234 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

musical club called the " Bull's Head " Society, which
after various migrations from the old tavern from
which it derived its name, finally settled in the new
Music Hall. The " Bull's Head " Society always had
hung upon the outskirts of the Cathedral of Christ
Church, and from time to time decoyed to its reunions
various of the minor dignitaries of that ancient foun-
dation. So ancient indeed, that an inquisition in the
reign of Richard the Second declared that it was
"founded and endowed by divers Irish- men whose
names were unknown, time out of mind, and long
before the Conquest of Ireland." St. Patrick's Cathe-
dral, which may be called the Cathedral founded by
the Anglo-Norman colony in Ireland in a sort of
rivalry to the old Irish Cathedral of the Holy Trinity,
lay also in dangerous proximity to the head-quarters
of the " Bull's Head " Society, and some of its worthy
officers who had " music in their souls " joined their me-
lodious brethren of Christ Church occasionally at their
festive gatherings. A sort of whimsical anathema,
called by him an " exhortation," was hurled at the
heads of these delinquents in 1741 by Dean Swift, the
Dean of St. Patrick's. It reads very like what
Curran the " Prior" of "The Monks of the Screw "
might have issued about forty years later to his rather
lax community. In 1741 " the Dean " requested his
sub-dean and Chapter to punish such vicars as should
appear at the " Club of Fiddlers in Fishamble Street,"
" as songsters, fiddlers, pipers, trumpeters, drummers,
drum-majors, or in any sonal quality, according to the
flagitious aggravation of their respective disobedience,
rebellion, perfidy, and ingratitude." tf I also," adds
Swift, " require my sub-dean to proceed to the ex-
tremity of expulsion, if the said vicars should be found

HANDEL IN DUBLIN. 735

ungovernable, impenitent, or self-sufficient, especially
Taberner, Phipps, and Church, who, as I am informed,
have in violation of my sub-dean's and Chapter's
order in December last, at the instance of some
obscure persons unknown, presumed to sing and fiddle
at the Club above mentioned/'*

In 1741 the President of the "Club of Fiddlers in
Fishamble Street " was John O'Neil, or Neal, a pub-
lisher of music. It was through his exertions the
new Music Hall was erected. This is recorded in a
contemporary poem, from which we may take the four
following lines : —

" As Amphion built of old the Theban wall,
So Neal has built a sumptuous Musick Hall :
The one by pow'rful touches of his lute ;
The other by the fiddle and the flute. "

But the fiddle and the flute were not to be the only
instruments to resound within the new structure. Six
weeks after it was opened the hand of a great master
was to awaken new harmonies within its walls, perhaps
not thought of by the original projectors. Handel
came to Dublin ; " banished to Ireland," says the
index to the Dunciad, " by the English nobility" : —

" Strong in new arms, lo ! Giant Handel stands,
Like bold Briareus, with a hundred hands ;
To stir, to rouse, to shake the soul he comes,
And Jove's own thunders follow Mars's drums.
Arrest him, empress, or you sleep no more —
She heard, and drove him to th' Hibernian shore."

A year later than Handel's visit to Dublin, Pope
paid a graceful compliment to Ireland in his lines to

* GILBERT'S History of Dublin, vol. i. pp. 69, 70.

Alluding to the figure of the harp woven
into the texture of the Irish linen tablecloth hospitably
spread before the aged poet, who was himself a native
o£Dublin, he says :-—

"Xn(l Ireland, mother of sweet singers,
Presents her harp still to his fingers."

<nli lo «0ird •>?« Vj uG<tr.T|»iilli ulw • •; , AIM

The " mother of sweet singers " could not do less
than give Handel a cordial reception. She had
already presented her harp in some of its most attrac-
tive utterances to that " sweet son of song.1" The
melodies of Ireland, half a century before Moore
was born, delighted Handel. He is said to have
declared that he would willingly resign the fame
he had acquired by his most celebrated compositions
for the glory of being the inventor of the air Aileen
Aroon.*

From 1741, when the genius of Handel threw an un-
expected glory over the new Music Hall in Fishamble
Street, until 1812, when the apparition of Shelley
within its walls

"Bequeathed, like sunset to the skies,
The splendour of its prime,"

a period of seventy-one years had elapsed. The
gradual decay of the street had by this time advanced,
and with it that of the theatre. This building lay
almost out of view. It was approached by a wooden
porch or verandah in an angle of the street as you
descend from Werburgh Street and Hoey's Court (the
birthplace of Swift) towards the river. Many changes

* An Account of the Visit of Handel to Dublin ; with Incidental
Notices of his Life and Character. By Horatio Townsend, Esq.,
Barrister-at-Law, p. 64. Dublin, 1852.

FISHAMBLE STREET THEATRE. 237

had taken place in the locality. " Hell" itself was
proved not to have been eternal. The famous passage
or gateway so-called, surmounted by a black figure of
the devil carved in oak, had stood nearly opposite the
theatre in St. John's Lane. At the time of Shelley's
visit, Burns, if he had been living, would have had to
seek elsewhere for an illustration of the truth of the
story he told in " Death and Doctor Hornbook"—

b&A oi!8 .jaoiigposT l^ibioo & lobnsH ovrs jusiiJ
" But this that I am gaun to tell,

Which lately on a night befell,

Is just as true as the Deil's in Hell

Or Dublin City." ^bjifiloil lo B

The " Deil" had disappeared or been metamorph
into snuffboxes !"*

TT , , i c*. , rra I yff •fcajurm bfiii* Of

Fishanible Street Theatre survived for something
over half a century after Shelley's visit. In the de-
caying street there was one nourishing establishment.
To that exceptional sign of prosperity it owed its de-
struction. The growing needs of an enterprising
firm adjoining required larger accommodation. The
theatre was taken down, and the open show-yard of a
thriving iron factory now occupies the space on which
it stood.f

The vigilance exercised by the Irish Government in
ascertaining through their secret agents the arrange-
ments of the Catholics for the intended meeting of

* One of these the author remembers having ween in his boy*
hood. The box bore on a silver lid the following inscription, which
was read with all due awe.:-^ ^^ (^^ ^ ^

" Prime your nose well, and I'd have you be civil,

For this box it was made of a part of the Devil.1"
roal rfjiw ; n/IduQ oi IsbmiH lo dhiV sifi lo inr/oooA nA *
•j" The site is well defined. It is in the angle of the street, and
separates the two establishments of Messrs. Kennaa and Sons.

438 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

February 28th, 1812, did not relax when the meeting
took place. Two persons were sent to Fishamble
Street Theatre to furnish special reports of the pro-
ceedings. Both reporters were connected with the
police — one a chief constable, Mr. Michael Farrell,
well known in the local history of the period; the
other, a Mr. Manning, who held an inferior position.
These reports are preserved among the State Papers in
the Record Office. Unfortunately they give us little
or no information on the subject of Shelley. In one
he is not mentioned at all ; in the other he is barely
alluded to. Of the two reports, that signed Thos. K.
Manning is the longest. In this Shelley's name does
not appear. Another young man, afterwards very
distinguished, the late Sir Thomas Wyse, the English
Ambassador in Greece, made his first appearance in
public at the same meeting. He proposed the reso-
lution to which Shelley spoke, and is thus described
by Mr. Manning : —

" On this resolution, Mr. Wise, a young boy, de-
livered a speech of considerable length and replete
with much elegant language ; the principal matter it
contained of notice was, that he lamented that the
Kegent should abandon Mr. Fox's principles and join
in a shameful coalition, or that he had been so far
womanized — here he was interrupted by a question of
order."

In 1812, Mr. Wyse was twenty-one years of age,
having been born in 1791 ; the description "a young
boy" could therefore be scarcely applicable to him.
Shelley was nineteen years and six months old, but
looked so young that his servant could give out with
some appearance of truth that he was but fifteen.

SIR THOMAS WYSE. 239

The full report of the elaborate speech of Mr. Wyse
is now before us, and it contains no language in the
slightest degree disrespectful to the Prince Regent,
neither was the speaker called to order. In fact, the
business of the meeting was to adopt an address to
his Royal Highness, and the observations alluded to
by the reporter could scarcely have been used by any
one who had been selected by the managers to take
an important part in its proceedings. Shelley's speech
was volunteered. His strong feelings towards the Prince
at this time we know from his own letters, and he may
easily have strayed into the expression of them. In
one of his letters, hitherto unpublished, an extract
from which will presently be given, he tells us that
some of his observations met with interruption. On
the whole we think that Mr. Manning, in copying his
notes, transferred the description from Shelley to Mr.
Wyse.

The second reporter, Mr. Farrell, the peace officer,
mentions Shelley but very slightly. He says : —

" Lord Glentworth said a few words — a Mr. Bennett
spoke, also Mr. Shelley, who stated himself to be a
native of England."

With these manuscript reports the Lord Lieutenant
forwarded to the Home Secretary a copy of The Dublin
Evening Post of Saturday, the 29th February, 1812,
containing a full report of the proceedings at the
meeting which took place the day before. It is from
this paper that the only version of Shelley's speech
hitherto published has been taken. It was originally
extracted by the present writer, from whose transcript
it was copied into Sir. Middleton's Shelley and his
Writings (vol. i. p. 212). There are two other versions

240 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

of the speech which have not previously been known.
One of these is indeed very short, but as it expressly
mentions the kind manner in which the youthful
speaker was received by the meeting, it is very valuable
as part of the refutation of the calumnious statement
made years after by Mr. Hogg, which has been so
improperly repeated by others who reject Mr. Hogg's
testimony when they dislike it, and adopt it when it
is in accordance with their own prejudices. This brief
report appeared on the morning after the meeting in
The Freeman's Journal of Saturday, Feb. 29th, 1813.
It was repeated in The Hibernian Journal, or Daily
Chronicle of Liberty, Dublin, Monday, March 2nd,
1812. And again in a more accessible shape in
Walker's Hibernian Magazine for February, 1812,
p. 83. As it was the earliest report, it may be here
given first : —

Shelley's Speech at Fishamble Street Theatre, Dublin,

Feb. 2,8th, 1812.
From The Freeman's Journal, Dublin, Feb. apth, 1812.

" On the fifth [it should have been the sixth]
resolution being proposed, Mr. Shelley, an English
gentleman (very young), the son of a Member of Par-
liament, rose to address the meeting. He was received
with great kindness, and declared that the greatest
misery this country endured was the Union Law, the
Penal Code, and the state of the representation. He
drew a lively picture of the misery of the country,
which he attributed to the unfortunate Act of Legis-
lative Union."

On the evening of the same day, in the Dublin
Evening Post of Saturday, the 29th of February, 1812,

REPORTS OF SHELLETS SPEECH.

a fuller report of the speech is given. The italics are
in the original.

• 3ffr doidw at 1911 LIB m fisnx

Shelley's Speech.

•,.?a eiforrrmiflv -q efi

From 2%* D«M» J^% Porf, Saturday, 29th Feb. 181*^

^TIT •"$£ it^'i .'ivfto yr . TT

Mr. Shelley requested a hearing. He was an

Englishman, and when he reflected on the crimes com-
mitted by his nation on Ireland, he could not but blush
for his countrymen, did he not know that arbitrary
power never failed to corrupt the heart of man. (Loud

, to.JHMftllOV.tt .. ,

applause for several minutes.)

TT , T -r i i n i i A

" He had come to Ireland for the sole purpose of
interesting himself in her misfortunes. He was deeply
impressed with a sense of the evils which Ireland en-
dured, and he considered them to be truly ascribed to
the fatal effects of the legislative union with Great
Britain.

" He walked through the streets, and he saw the
fane of liberty converted into a temple of Mammon.
(Loud applause.) He beheld beggary and famine in
the country, and he could lay his hand on his heart
and say that the cause of such sights was the union
with Great Britain. (Hear, hear.) He was resolved
to do his utmost to promote a Repeal of the Union.
Catholic Emancipation would do a great deal towards
the amelioration of the condition of the people, but
he was convinced that the Repeal of the Union was of
more importance. He considered that the victims
whose members were vibrating on gibbets were driven
to the commission of the crimes which they expiated
by their lives by the effects of the Union."

The third and longest report of Shelley's speech is

R

, 42 PERCY B YSSHE SHELLEY.

as follows. It is taken from The Patriot, Dublin,
2nd March, 1812:— (f^ f'

" Mr. Shelly then addressed the Chair. He hoped
he should not be accounted a transgressor on the time
of the meeting. He felt inadequate to the task he
had undertaken, but he hoped the feelings which
urged him forward would plead his pardon. He was
an Englishman; when he reflected on the outrages
that his countrymen had committed here for the last
twenty years he confessed that he blushed for them.
He had come to Ireland for the sole purpose of
interesting himself in the misfortunes of this country,
and impressed with a full conviction of the necessity
of Catholic Emancipation, and of the baneful effects
which the union with Great Britain had entailed upon
Ireland. He had walked through the fields of the
country and the streets of the city, and he had in
both seen the miserable effects of that fatal step. He
had seen that edifice which ought to have been the
fane of their liberties converted to a temple of
Mammon. Many of the crimes which are daily com-
mitted he could not avoid attributing to the effect of
that measure, which had thrown numbers of people
out of the employment they had in manufacture, and
induced them to commit acts of the greatest despera-
tion for the support of their existence.

" He could not imagine that the religious opinion
of a man should exclude him from the rights of society.
The original founder of our religion taught no such
doctrine. Equality in this respect was general in the
American States, and why not here ? Did a change
of place change the nature of man ? He would beg
those in power to recollect the French Revolution :

SHELLEY'S OWN COMMENT ON HIS SPEECH. 14$

the suddenness, the violence with which it burst forth,
and the causes which gave rise to it.

" Both the measures of Emancipation and a Repeal
of the Union should meet his decided support, but he
hoped many years would not pass over his head when
he would make himself conspicuous at least by his zeal
for them."*

In these versions of the speech, which are the only
ones I have been able to find in the Irish papers of
the period, or rather in those of them that are still
extant, there is no suggestion that Shelley met with
the slightest discourtesy from those he addressed.
Indeed, it would be strange if he had. His youth,
his enthusiasm, his eloquence, as we will find,
delighted the assembly by which, as we are told in
The Freeman's Journal, " he was received with great
kindness." Some slight interruption he did meet with
at the beginning, but that was, as he tells us himself
in the unpublished letter we have referred to, when
he spoke of " religion." In this letter, which is dated
"17, Grafton Street, Dublin, March 14, 1812," he

" My speech was misinterpreted. I spoke for more
than an hour. The hisses with which they greeted
me when I spoke of religion, though in terms of
respect, were mixed with applause when I avowed my
mission. The newspapers have only noted that which
did not excite disapprobation."

Without attributing any over-sensitiveness to the

* I find that this version of the speech appeared first in
Saunders's News-Letter, Saturday, February 29th, 1812, the day
after the meeting.

11 2

244 PERCY BYSSUE SHELLEt.

meeting, we may well imagine that Shelley's mode of
speaking of religion, " though in terms of respect/'
was not that which would recommend itself very
favourably to an assembly of Irishmen who had not
been " educated" (to use the expression of a modern
statesman) in the higher mysteries of philanthropy.
In his second pamphlet, which was issued four days
after he delivered this speech, there are passages
which, if spoken amid the excitement of a public
meeting, would indeed run some chance of being
" misinterpreted/"' People could not have time to
decide with accuracy as to what he exactly meant by
"the eyeless monster Bigotry, whose throne has
tottered for two hundred years" (p. 3). Perhaps they
would only have laughed if he had exclaimed as he
has written, " I hear the teeth of the palsied beldame
Superstition chatter, and I see her descending to the
grave ! Reason points to the open gates of the
Temple of Religious Freedom, Philanthropy kneels at
the altar of the common God" (p. 3). By the " pal-
sied beldame Superstition" Shelley of course under-
stood the " religion" of the great majority of the
people he addressed, and which he spoke of in such
" terms of respect."

That, however, is not the view which Mr. Hogg,
the poet's biographer, takes of the matter, and here
we shall give that veracious gentleman's statement in
full. We must remind the reader of the mysterious
affair at York, of which something has been said irf
the earlier portion of this book. Owing to that event
a total estrangement for a while took place between
Shelley and his college friend. At the time we speak of
(February, 1812) no intercourse whatever had existed
between them for several preceding months, nor was it

ALLEGED STATEMENT OF SHELLEY. 245

renewed for nearly a year afterwards. Shelley had not
sent his late friend his Irish pamphlets, he did not write
to him on any subject, he gave him no account of his
proceedings. At a later period, which Mr. Hogg does
not particularize, when his injured friend had gene-
rously forgiven him, and let him a little into his con-
fidence once more, he says that Shelley spoke to him
" twice, not oftener," he believed, tf of his Irish
mission." Before this conversation recurred to Mr.
Hogg's memory he had made a statement as if on his
own authority concerning this very mission. "There
was one meeting of philanthropists/' says the truthful
biographer, " for it was reported in a newspaper, and
probably puffed a little, perhaps for a valuable con-
sideration. Whether there were more meetings does
not appear. Poor Bysshe made a speech, and pro-
posed his scheme, but it did not succeed/' (Life of
Shelley, vol. ii. p. 108.) It is scarcely necessary to
say that there is not one word of truth in all this.
There was no " meeting of philanthropists ;" it was
never " puffed a little in a newspaper ;" Shelley never
made a speech at a meeting of " philanthropists," and
never " proposed his scheme." It is no wonder there-
fore, under these circumstances, that " it did not
succeed." After pages of malevolent and ill-concealed
contempt for Shelley, and openly avowed hatred of
Ireland, Mr. Hogg resumes his narrative. In the
passage quoted he had drawn on his imagination for
his facts ; he now draws on his memory for his imagi-
nation : —

" Twice — not oftener, I believe — he spoke to
me of his Irish mission. On one occasion he told
me that at a meeting — probably at the meeting of

246 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

philanthropists — so much ill-will was shown towards
the Protestants, that thereupon he was provoked to
remark that the Protestants were fellow Christians,
fellow subjects, and as such were entitled to equal
rights, to equal charity, toleration, and the rest. He
was forthwith interrupted by savage yells ; a tre-
mendous uproar arose, and he was compelled to be
silent. At the same meeting and afterwards he was
even threatened with personal violence. This un-
reasonable display of Popish and party bigotry went
far to disgust him with his rash enterprise, to open
his eyes, and to convince him that Irish grievances
consisted nqt in a denial of equal rights — these the
Philanthropic Association did not seek— but the power
and opportunity to tyrannize over and oppress their
Protestant brethren/' (Hogg's Life of Shelley, vol. ii.
pp. 113, 114.)

Out of the pages of the much maligned Ferdinand
Mendez Pinto — that "liar of the first magnitude,"
who must have been indeed but " the type " of this
cynical biographer — there could not be found within
the same space a greater number of reckless misre-
presentations than these, if we must not call them
by a shorter and more emphatic title. That Shelley
ever made them is incredible. They are contradicted
by his own letters at the time, by the facts of the
case, by the evidence already adduced, and by the
important letter of an unimpeachable witness who
happened to be present at the meeting, and whose
unwilling testimony to the cordiality of Shelley's
reception, and the enthusiasm he produced, puts an
end for ever to the monstrous fable of Mr. Hogg.
That fable has unfortunately been adopted by others

From, a lithograph by Haverty,
J\dr Wyse, subsequently the I^ig-ht Hon. Sir
^Thomas Wyse, K. Q.§., late British Jtfinister at -
Jithens, commenGed public life at the meeting-
in Fishamble Street theatre, (Dublin, Feb.

He seconded the resolution to which
Shelley spoke. See p. %47.

.

REFUTATION OF MR. HOGG'S CALUMNIES. 247

who have publicly impeached the veracity of the
authority on which it is founded. It would be easy
to point out the injury that is done to society by
disseminating statements which a slight examination
would prove to be untrue, particularly when such
calumnies have no result except in perpetuating and
keeping alive national and religious animosities. The
subject would however be painful, and perhaps out of
place here. It is to be hoped that in future " Shelley
Memorials " and " Memoirs " a very different account
from that which disfigures those at present in existence
will be given of the manner in which the poet was
received by those he went to serve.

The Resolution to which Shelley spoke would in
itself disprove the story of Mr. Hogg.

" KESOLVED, That the grateful thanks of this
Meeting are due, and hereby returned to Lord Glent-
worth, the Right Hon. Maurice Fitzgerald, and the
other DISTINGUISHED PROTESTANTS who have this day
honoured us with their presence."

This Resolution, which was passed by acclamation
by the assembly, was spoken to by Lord Glentworth,
a Protestant nobleman, as well as by the philanthropic
Shelley, and was seconded by the distinguished gentle-
man already referred to, the late Sir Thomas Wyse —
then Mr. Wyse — a Catholic. The eloquent speech of
Mr. Wyse is given at great length in the Dublin
newspaper sent by Shelley to Godwin on the 8th of
March, i8j2. The concluding passage seems as if it
were addressed to the young poet and philanthropist
who stood by his side. We print it exactly as it is
given in the newspaper.

,48 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

"On that day of Peace;" said Mr. Wyse, "when
national animosity is sepulchred beneath the trophies
of national harmony, we shall remember with gratitude
the PROTESTANT who stood by us in our struggle, and
bore our broken standard to the front of the battle,
whilst we prepare the Sacrifice to the Spirit of UN-
DISTINGUISHED BROTHERHOOD AND UNIVERSAL EMANCI-
PATION."— The Weekly Messenger, Saturday, March
7th, 1812.*

* This, the maiden speech of the late Sir Thomas Wyse, which
fills nearly four columns of The Weekly Messenger, March yth,
1812, is thus introduced by the editor of that journal : —

" ME. WISE, JUNE.

" The report which we now give of the speech delivered by this
gentleman, at the late aggregate meeting of the Catholics of Ireland,
will be observed by our readers to be the most correct and most
accurate as yet presented to the public. It will be found, we hope,
that some justice is done to those talents which excited such general
applause. That the lover of his country, and the admirer of the
growing genius of our Island, will find great satisfaction in the
perusal of the following speech, we have no doubt. We trust that
every effort which shall hereafter be made by our countrymen will
rival the talents which we have already witnessed, and that the
eloquence of our young advocate may be a presage of the advantages
which the British empire shall hereafter reap from their full and
unqualified possession."

i vt&ri YiHs -r.)jti;wtfa ei-ji o ;u>
U «/>fn a >••«! /Jooifiv? o^jsii hfjsoa /')Il'>d8 Las i-jg
imDil) ii;i 'H.> Jio'fio ia- vci )q-^zr> -/"romoaj ^

-Jilt .<«.

CHAPTER X.

'T'HE following important letter, now for the first
time given in connexion with the life of Shelley,
while it disposes of the calumny so readily believed and
so recklessly diffused as to his reception at a public
meeting, referred to in the preceding chapter, settles also
the interesting question, which has often been raised,
of Shelley's probable success as an orator had he
devoted himself to the cultivation of eloquence instead
of poetry.

Medwin, Trelawny, and Captain Williams the
partner of his fate, speak highly of the elevation of
Shelley's ordinary conversation, which rose occasio-
nally into an unstudied eloquence. But they never
heard him address a public assembly. The only one
hitherto recorded — except the anonymous writers
subsequently to be mentioned— who had this oppor-
tunity, and made some allusion to it, was the late
Chief Baron Woulfe. His description leaves the
impression that Shelley was a cold, methodical, and
ineffective speaker. Chief Baron Woulfe was in bad
health when he is reported to have mentioned his
recollection of Shelley's manner. Many years had
elapsed, and Shelley could have scarcely been recalled
to his memory except by an effort. Of far different
value is the testimony wrung most reluctantly at the
moment from an unwilling witness. That testimony

250 PERCY SYSSHE SHELLEY.

is contained in the following letter, which was pub-
lished in the Government organ of the day, The Dublin
Journal, a paper originally started by George Faulkner,
the publisher of Swift : —

-Y/oi:.'l •' f>*?fi ->f •/.•(.» ?,iJ jfjf// m>.r//.)ti

SHELLEY AS AN ORATOR, DESCRIBED BY

"Ax ENGLISHMAN" IN 1813.

" To the Editor of The Dublin Journal.

<r 5 \ *' ~ •' ; * !I-H* ( '• ;})•"'! * »}> i^ilJiJid fill

"Saturday, March 7th, 1812.

" Sir, — Our public meetings now-a-days, instead of
exhibiting the deliberations of men of acknowledged
wisdom and experience, resemble mere debating so-
cieties, where unfledged candidates for national dis-
tinction rant out a few trite and commonplace obser-
vations with as much exultation and self-applause as
if they possessed the talents or eloquence of a Saurin
or a Burke. This remark is particularly applicable
to almost the whole of the meetings which have been
assembled within the last twelve months by the
Catholics ; at which young gentlemen of this descrip-
tion have constantly intruded themselves upon the
public notice, and by the unseasonable and injudicious
violence of their language, have not a little prejudiced
the cause they attempted to support. Curiosity and
the expected gratification of hearing a display of
oratory by some of the leading members of the
Catholic body led me on Friday, for the first time, to
the Aggregate Meeting in Fishamble Street. Being
rather late I missed the orations of Mr. Connell [sic]
and the leading orators, and only heard a dry mono-
tonous effusion from Counsellor , and, to me, a

most disgusting harangue from a stripling, with whom
1 am unacquainted, but who, I am sorry to say, styled

SHELLEY AS AN ORATOR IN 1812. 251

himself my countryman — an Englishman. This young
gentleman, after stating that he had been only a
fortnight in Ireland, expatiated on the miseries which
this country endured in consequence of its con-
nexion with his own, and asserted (from the know-
ledge, I presume, which his peculiar sagacity enabled
him to acquire in so short a period) that its cities
were depopulated, its fields laid waste, and its in-
habitants degraded and enslaved ; and all this by its
union with England. If it revolted against my prin-
ciples, Mr. Editor, to hear such language from one of
my own countrymen, you will readily conceive that my
disgust was infinitely heightened to observe with what
transport the invectives of this renegade Englishman
against his native country were hailed by the assembly
he addressed. Joy beamed in every countenance and
rapture glistened in every eye at the aggravated detail :
the delirium of ecstasy got the better of prudential
control ; the veil was for a moment withdrawn. I
thought I saw the purpose, in spite of the pretence,
written in legible characters in each of their faces, and
though emancipation alone flowed from the tongue,
separation and ascendancy were rooted in the heart.

" As for the young gentleman alluded to, I con-
gratulate the Catholics of Ireland on the acquisition
of so patriotic and enlightened an advocate; and
England, I dare say, will spare him without regret.
I must, however, remark that as the love of his
country is one of the strongest principles implanted
in the breast of man by his Maker, and as the affec-
tions are more ardent in youth than in maturer years,
that this young gentleman should at so early an.
age have overcome the strongest impulses of nature,
seems to me a complete refutation of the hitherto

252 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

supposed infallible maxim that Nemo fuit repente

turpissimus.

"AN ENGLISHMAN."

Thus it will be seen that instead of being "interrupted
by savage yells/' as Mr. Hogg and Lady Shelley would
have us believe, this " stripling," this " renegade Eng-
lishman;" as he is called by his indignant countryman,
" was hailed with delight" by his Irish audience ; "joy
beamed in every countenance and rapture glistened in
every eye ;" and if there was disposition'to "threaten,
him with personal violence/' we may now safely
infer from what quarter it would be likely to have
come.

The same day, the yth of March, 1812, on which The
Dublin Journal published this sarcastic allusion to the
speech of "a stripling" it does not condescend to name,
is memorable in the life of Shelley as that on which he
is first spoken of openly in terms of enthusiastic admira-
tion and praise. With the exception of his appearing
among the subscribers to the Poems of Janetta Philipps,
and to the Oxford Fund in Sustainment of Peter Fin-
nerty, as previously mentioned, the following is the
earliest public allusion to him that can be discovered.
It appeared in The Weekly Messenger, another Dublin
journal, but differing very widely in politics from that
which contains the letter of "An Englishman." Shelley
seems to have been rather proud of the notice, as he
sent it at once to Godwin. Writing to the philosopher
on the following day, he says, " You will see the
account of ME in the newspapers. I am vain, but not
so foolish as not to be rather piqued than gratified at
the eulogia of a journal."

The following is this very interesting article, the

FIRST PUBLIC NOTICE OP SHELLEY. 253

first public notice of Shelley. It is printed exactly
as in the original : —

From The Weekly Messenger, Dublin, Saturday, March 7 th, 1812.
" PIERCE BYSHE SHELLY, ESQ.

" The highly interesting appearance of this young
gentleman at the late Aggregate Meeting of the
Catholics of Ireland, has naturally excited a spirit of
enquiry, as to his objects and views, in coming forward
at such a meeting ; and the publications which he has
circulated with such uncommon industry, through the
Metropolis, has set curiosity on the wing to ascertain
who he is, from whence he comes, and what his preten-
sions are to the confidence he solicits, and the character
he assumes. To those who have read the productions
we have alluded to, we need bring forward no evidence
of the cultivation of his mind — the benignity of his
principles — or the peculiar fascination with which he
seems able to recommend them.

"Of this gentleman's family we can say but little,
but we can set down what we have heard from respect-
able authority. That his father is a member of the
Imperial Parliament, and that this young gentleman,
whom we have seen, is the immediate heir of one of
the first fortunes in England. Of his principles and
his manners we can say more, because we can collect
from conversation, as well as from reading, that he
seems devoted to the propagation of those divine and
Christian feelings which purify the human heart, give
shelter to the poor, and consolation to the unfortunate.
That he is the bold and intrepid advocate of those
principles which are calculated to give energy to truth,
and to depose from their guilty eminence the bad and

754 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

vicious passions of a corrupt community; — that a
universality of charity is his object, and a perfectibility
of human society his end, which cannot be attained by
the conflicting dogmas of religious sects, each priding
itself on the extinction of the other, and all existing by
the mutual misfortunes which flow from polemical war-
fare. The principles of this young gentleman em-
brace all sects and all persuasions. His doctrines,
political and religious, may be accommodated to all ;
every friend to true Christianity will be his religious
friend, and every enemy to the liberties of Ireland will
be his political enemy. The weapons he wields are
those of reason, and the most social benevolence. He
deprecates violence in the accomplishment of his views,
and relies upon the mild and merciful spirit of tole-
ration for the completion of all his designs, and the
consummation of all his wishes. To the religious
bigot such a missionary of truth is a formidable op-
ponent, by the political monopolist he will be considered
the child of Chimera, the creature of fancy, an ima-
ginary legislator who presumes to make laws without
reflecting upon his materials, and despises those con-
siderations which have baffled the hopes of the most
philanthropic and the efforts of the most wise. It is
true, human nature may be too depraved for such a
hand as Mr. Shelly's to form to anything that
is good, or liberal, or beneficent. Let him but take down
one of the rotten pillars by which society is now
propped, and substitute the purity of his own princi-
ples, and Mr. Shelly shall have done a great and lasting
service to human nature. To this gentleman Ireland
is much indebted, for selecting her as the theatre of
his first attempts in this holy work of human regenera-
tion ; the Catholics of Ireland should listen to him with

FIRST PUBLIC NOTICE OF SHELLEY. 255

respect., because they will find that an enlightened
Englishman has interposed between the treason of
their own countrymen and the almost conquered
spirit of their country ; that Mr. Shelly has come
to Ireland to demonstrate in his person that there are
hearts in his own country not rendered callous by six
hundred years of injustice ; and that the genius of
freedom, which has communicated comfort and content
to the cottage of the Englishman, has found its way
to the humble roof of the Irish peasant, and promises
by its presence to dissipate the sorrows of past ages, to
obliterate the remembrance of persecution, and close
the long and wearisome scene of centuries of human de-
pression. We extract from Mr. Shelly's last production,
which he calls " PROPOSALS FOR AN ASSOCIATION, &c."

A long quotation from this pamphlet follows, which,
as it is printed entire in this book, need not be given.
The writer in The Weekly Messenger concludes his
observations with the following important paragraph : —

" We have but one word more to add. Mr. Shelly,
commiserating the sufferings of our distinguished
countryman Mr. Finerty, whose exertions in the
cause of political freedom he much admired, wrote a
very beautiful poem, the profits of which we under-
stand, from undoubted authority, Mr. Shelly remitted
to Mr. Finerty; we have heard they amounted to
nearly an hundred pounds. This fact speaks a volume
in favour of our new friend."

Here then is the statement which has led to the
whole of this investigation. It seemed incredible that
a poem thus mentioned to the writer of the foregoing
article, evidently by Shelley himself, should have re-

256 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

mained unknown to every one who lived in familiar
intimacy with the poet, or who has written about him
since his death. The fact of Shelley sending this
statement to Godwin without a word of correction con-
firms its truth. The name of the poem is not given.
There was no clue but the fact that the profits of the
sale were remitted to Mr. Finnerty. That however, as
I have shown, proved sufficient to enable me to identify
this " very beautiful poem" with the Poetical Essay on
the Existing State of Things, published, as it is stated,
for the purpose of " assisting to maintain in prison Mr.
Peter Finnerty, imprisoned for a libel/''

Before alluding to the probable writer of this article
in The Weekly Messenger, I will here give a
letter reflecting upon it, and upon Shelley, who is still
not named, which appeared a fortnight later in Faulk-
ner's Dublin Journal. The " stripling's" pretensions
to be a poet, on the strength of this poem about
Finnerty, are sarcastically referred to. The writer now
calls himself " a Dissenter" instead of "an Englishman/''

" To the Editor of The Dublin Journal.

"Saturday, March 2ist, 1812.

" Sir, — T question the propriety of contributing to
the public introduction of those literary nondescripts
and political adventurers who figure occasionally on the
Catholic stage. Men there are who, preferring dis-
tinction procured by infamy to inglorious obscurity, do
not hesitate at the violation of any law, civil or sacred,
in order to attain it : swimming at the surface by their
own putrescence, these merit not our attention ; silence
and contempt are all we owe to the individual whose
sole ambition is to become the idol of a mob, and who

A DUBLIN "DISSENTER," 1812, ON SHELLEY. 257

like Herostratus, could fire a temple the wonder of the
world, merely for the sake of transmitting to posterity
a name which might otherwise rot.

" Through the medium of your paper, however, the
attention of the public has been called to another of the
Catholic performers, and a late worthy correspondent
has obliged you with some deserved and judicious
animadversions upon his debut. In a weekly paper, the
appearance of this ' very interesting' personage is
announced with as much parade as if Dogberry, Verges,
and the Watch graced the scene. ' Oh, a stool and a
cushion for the sexton/ ' An two men ride of a horse,
one must ride behind/ f The ewe that will not hear
her lamb when it baes, will never answer a calf when
he bleats/ His panegyrist has described him with the
minuteness of an interested biographer ; the prospects
and the talents of the ' stranger' and his generosity, his
amazing generosity to an incarcerated individual [Mr.
Peter Finnerty] , whose crime was not loyalty, are made
the subjects of commendation ; and in illustration of the
excellence of this modern Apollonius, who travels but
for the improvement of the human race, a specimen of
his composition is printed and circulated. I do not find
that he, like the Cappadocian, has laid claims to mira-
culous powers, but he is a poet, and his very prose is
so full of poetic fire, so vivid, so redundant with words,
which, like those often used by a celebrated female
novelist, were probably never intended to represent any
specific idea — one is tempted to think he must now and
then compose under the influence of the moon. Now,
sir, though I really can neither ' make occasions/ nor
' improve those that offer/ for perusing the whole of a
production which is scarcely to be paralleled in the
ravings of Diderot, the rhapsodies of Rousseau, or the

s

25g PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

soft sentimental stuff of the Prebend of York, I have
read enough of this specimen to confirm me in the
old-fashioned but honest and conscientious prejudices
which it is evidently the wish of its author to eradicate.
He proposes to ' exterminate the eyeless monster
Bigotry/ and ' make the teeth of the palsied beldame
Superstition chatter/ This, which is doubtless de-
signed as an allegorical allusion to the Romish Church,
must, if actually accomplished, be its death ; and when
' the teeth of the beldame chatter/ her brats may go beg ;
he proposes to make us all ' kneel at the altar of the
common God/ and to ' hang upon that altar the garland
of devotion/ figures which Deism borrows from the old
Heathen mythology, which are mere poetic smoke, and
resemble most the steams of a perfumer's shop, or the
smock of an Eastern bride smelling of ' myrrh, aloes,
and cassia/

"In a style less elevated and Heliconian this
modern annihilator of moral and political evil roundly
proposes an association throughout Ireland for the
attainment of f Catholic Emancipation and the repeal
of the Union Act/ That the abolition of the aris-
tocracy of the country is a feature in his picture of
Utopian amelioration, though, for reasons obvious, but
lightly touched, and as yet kept in the shade, is evi-
dent from the manner and connexion in which he
disapproves l of other distinctions than those of virtue
and talent' — a disapproval specious indeed, worthy
the head of him who expects a new Jerusalem on
earth, or seeks divine perfection among created beings.
But ignorant, shamefully ignorant, must they be of
human nature, and of the awful events which have
taken place in Europe of late years, who can be gulled
by such a pretext now. It is ' Vox et praterea nihil,'

SATIRICAL ALLUSIONS TO SHELLEY IN 1812. 259

the very cant of republicans. I would suspect the
cause which recommends itself by such a pretext, as
I would the chastity of a wanton assuming the dress of
a nun — the loyalty of a friar or a presbyter armed with
a pike, or the honesty of a beggar with a casquet of
jewels. 'No distinctions but those of virtue and
talent ' was the pretext of Monsieur Egalite, of
Legendre the butcher, of the bloody Roland, and of
that monster in human shape Marat, who proposed,
and was applauded by a banditti of ruffians calling
themselves a National Convention for professing, the
cutting off one hundred and fifty thousand heads as a
sovereign specific for the disorders of France.

" It is said in a book to whose pages the ' very in-
teresting ' Philanthropist seems not to be a stranger,
that ' burning lips and a wicked heart ' are ' like a
potsherd covered with silver/ the man I mean has
himself quoted the phrase ' a tree is known by its
fruits/ and if I mistake not, such expressions warrant
the opinion that from certain noisy but- worthless
characters nothing but what is noxious can be ex-
pected. Men whose private life and known habits
make them the refuse of the political, and the terror
or the stain of the moral world, would make but sorry
reformers of public abuse. I need not whisper f whence
I steal the waters ' when I say, ' Physician, heal thy-
self/ It is usual to commend the Catholic body
for their loyalty ; that they are generally loyal is
sometimes acknowledged even by those who, in their
official situations, reprobate the proceedings of the
Catholic Committee. That there are loyal Catholics,
both lay and clerical, is, I believe, probable, but it
would puzzle a conjuror to reconcile with loyalty, as
it is by loyalists understood, some of the Catholic

S 2

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

[Some passages not referring to Shelley
are here omitted.] " Leaving this "interesting stranger'
to amuse the admirers of the Catholic Drama by puff-
ing at ' the meteors ' of his own creation, ' which play
over the loathsome pool ' of his own pantomimic
invention, I will ask you, sir, what has the Protestant
cause, and what has that consummation of political
wisdom the British constitution, to fear from a party
which has to shelter in the shade of such paltry and
unmeaning bombast ? The Philanthropist talks bigly
of ' blossoms to be matured by the summer sun of
improved intellect and progressive virtue/ — but if his
root be rotten his blossoms will be dust. . . . From
such corrections and such apologists, and from the
machinations of all pseudo-philanthropists, may the
good Lord deliver us !

'•' I have the honour to be, Sir,
" Yours, &c.,

" A DISSENTER/'*

This letter finally disposes of Mr. Hogg's absurd
story, and shows the quarter from which alone Shelley
received any actual opposition when in Dublin. The
" hint from the police" is equally apocryphal. Shelley's
and Harriet's letters prove that he received none.

This may be the most suitable place to reprint the
second pamphlet. As a publication it differs in one
important particular from the other. It has the
printer's name. I have not been able to find an
" I. Eton, Winetavern Street," in any of the Dublin
Directories. Shelley was greatly interested in the
notorious Daniel Isaac Eaton, of London, as proved

* Extracted from Faulkner's Dublin Journal, Saturday, March
2ist, 1812.

A DUBLIN STOCKDALE. 261

by the Letter to Lord Ellenborough. He would scarcely
have invented his Irish namesake. It is, however, a
rather curious coincidence to have not only a Dublin
Stockdale, but a Dublin Eaton or Eton. Mr. John
Stockdale was the actual printer of The Press news-
paper, the celebrated organ of the United Irishmen in
1797. The registered printer was Peter Finnerty. On
the arrest and imprisonment of the latter, December
23rd, 1797, the name of Arthur O'Connor was sub-
stituted as printer, and continued until the suppression
of the paper, March i3th, 1798.*

* On Tuesday, the 27th of February, 1798, Mr. John Stockdale
was brought for the second time to the bar of the Irish House of
Lords. On the preceding Saturday he had been before the same
tribunal, and declining to answer the question of the Lord Chan-
cellor as to whether The Press newspaper was printed at his house,
62, Abbey Street, Dublin, was discharged. On being summoned
for the second time, no time was lost in putting superfluous ques-
tions. He was directly charged with being the publisher of The
Press; was sentenced to six months' imprisonment, and to pay a
fine of 500^. As the editor of The Press said, " His accusation,
his trial, his conviction, his sentence and its execution were de-
spatched with the rapidity of a cabalistic charm." — Beauties of The
Press. London: Printed 1800, p. 555.

T)r. Madden tells us that Mr. Stockdale died in Abbey Street,
Dublin, January nth, 1813. — The United Irishmen, Second
Series, p. 246.

PROPOSALS

FOB AN

ASSOCIATION

OF THOSE

PHIL ANT HE OPISTS,

WHO CONVINCED OP THE INADEQUACY OP THE MOKAL AND POLITICAL
STATE OF IRELAND TO PRODUCE BENEFITS WHICH ARE NEVEBTHELESS
ATTAINABLE ARE WILLING TO UNITE TO ACCOMPLISH ITS RE-
GENERATION.

BY

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

IBufclm ;
PRINTED BY I. ETON, WINETAVERN-STREET.

[1812.]

PEOPOSALS

FOR

AN ASSOCIATION, &c.

I propose an association which shall have for its immediate objects,
Catholic Emancipation, and the Repeal of the Act of Union between
Great Britain and Ireland ; and grounding on the removal of these
grievances, an annihilation or palliation, of whatever moral or po-
litical evil, it may be within the compass of human power to assuage
or eradicate.

MAN cannot make occasions, but he may seize those
that offer. None are more interesting to philanthropy
than those which excite the benevolent passions, that
generalize and expand private into public feelings, and
make the hearts of individuals vibrate not merely for
themselves, their families, and their friends, but for
posterity, for a people ; till their country becomes the
world, and their family the sensitive creation.

A recollection of the absent, and a taking into con-
sideration the interests of those unconnected with our-
selves, is a principal source of that feeling which
generates occasions wherein a love for human kind
may become eminently useful and active. Public
topics of fear and hope, such as sympathize with
general grievance, or hold out hopes of general amend-
ment, are those on which the philanthropist would
dilate with the warmest feeling. Because these are

266 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

accustomed to place individuals at a distance from
self; for in proportion as he is absorbed in public
feeling, so will a consideration of his proper benefit be
generalized. In proportion as he feels with or for a
nation or a world, so will man consider himself less as
that centre to which we are but too prone to believe
that every line of human concern does or ought to
converge.

I should not here make the trite remark, that
selfish motive biasses, brutalizes, and degrades the
human mind, did it not thence follow, that to seize
those occasions wherein the opposite spirit predo-
minates, is a duty which Philanthropy imperiously
exacts of her votaries ; that occasions like these are
the proper ones for leading mankind to their own
interest by awakening in their minds a love for the
interest of their fellows. A plant that grows in every
soil, though too often it is choked by tares before its
lovely blossoms are expanded. Virtue produces plea-
sure, it is as the cause to the effect ; I feel pleasure
in doing good to my friend, because I love him. I
do not love him for the sake of that pleasure.

I regard the present state of the public mind in
Ireland to be one of those occasions which the ardent
votary of the religion of Philanthropy dare not leave
unseized. I perceive that the public interest is excited,
I perceive that individual interest has, in a certain
degree, quitted individual concern to generalize itself
with universal feeling. Be the Catholic Emancipation
a thing of great or of small misfortune [importance ?] ,
be it a means of adding happiness to four millions of
people, or a reform which will only give honour to a
few of the higher ranks, yet a benevolent and disin-
terested feeling has gone abroad, and I am willing that

PROPOSALS FOR AN ASSOCIATION. 267

it should never subside. I desire that means should
be taken with energy and expedition in this impor-
tant yet fleeting crisis, to feed the unpolluted flame
at which nations and ages may light the torch of
Liberty and Virtue !

It is my opinion that the claims of the Catholic
inhabitants of Ireland, if gained to-morrow, would in
a very small degree aggrandize their liberty and
happiness. The disqualifications principally affect the
higher orders of the Catholic persuasion, these would
principally be benefited by their removal. Power and
wealth do not benefit, but injure the cause of virtue
and freedom. I am happy, however, at the near
approach of this emancipation, because I am inimical
to all disqualifications for opinion. It gives me plea-
sure to see the approach of this enfranchisement, not
for the good which it will bring with it, but because
it is a sign of benefits approaching, a prophet of good
about to come ; and therefore do I sympathize with
the inhabitants of Ireland in this great cause ; a cause
which though in its own accomplishment will add not
one comfort to the cottager, will snatch not one from
the dark dungeon, will root not out one vice, alleviate
not one pang, yet it is the foreground of a picture,
in the dimness of whose distance I behold the lion
lay down with the lamb, and the infant play with the
basilisk. For it supposes the extermination of the
eyeless monster Bigotry, whose throne has tottered
for two hundred years. I hear the teeth of the palsied
beldame Superstition chatter, and I see her descending
to the grave ! Reason points to the open gates of
the Temple of Religious Freedom, Philanthropy kneels
at the altar of the common God ! There, wealth and
poverty, rank and abjectness, are names known but as

268 PERCY B YSSHE SHELLEY.

memorials of past time : meteors which play over the
loathsome pool of vice and misery, to warn the wan-
derer where dangers lie. Does a God rule this illi-
mitable universe? Are you thankful for his benefi-
cence— do you adore his wisdom — do you hang upon
his altar the garland of your devotion ? Curse not
your brother, though he hath enwreathed with [it?] his
flowers of a different hue ; the purest religion is that
of Charity, its loveliness begins to proselyte the hearts
of men. The tree is to be judged of by its fruit. I
regard the admission of the Catholic claims and the
Repeal of the Union Act as blossoms of that fruit
which the summer sun of improved intellect and pro-
gressive virtue is destined to mature.

I will not pass unreflected on the Legislative Union
of Great Britain and Ireland, nor will I speak of it as
a grievance so tolerable or unimportant in its own
nature as that of Catholic disqualification. The latter
affects few, the former affects thousands. The one
disqualifies the rich from power, the other impoverishes
the peasant, adds beggary to the city, famine to the
country, multiplies abjectedness, whilst misery and
crime play into each other's hands, under its withering
auspices. I esteem, then, the annihilation of this
second grievance to be something more than a mere
sign of coming good. I esteem it to be in itself a
substantial benefit. The aristocracy of Ireland — (for
much as I may disapprove other distinctions than
those of virtue and talent, I consider it useless, hasty,
and violent, not for the present to acquiesce in their
continuance) — the aristocracy of Ireland suck the
veins of its inhabitants and consume the blood in
England. I mean not to deny the unhappy truth
that there is much misery and vice in the world. I

PROPOSALS FOR AN ASSOCIATION. 269

mean to say that Ireland shares largely of both. —
England has made her poor; and the poverty of a
rich nation will make its people very desperate and
wicked.

I look forward then to the redress of both these
grievances, or rather, I perceive the state of the public
mind, that precedes them as the crisis of beneficial
innovation. The latter I consider to be the cause of the
former, as I hope 4t will be the cause of more compre-
hensively beneficial amendments. It forms that occasion
which should energetically and quickly be occupied.
The voice of the whole human race; their crimes,
their miseries, and their ignorance, invoke us to the
task. For the miseries of the Irish poor, exacerbated
by the union of their country with England, are not
peculiar to themselves. England, the whole civilized
world, with few exceptions, is either sunk in dispro-
portioned abjectness, or raised to unnatural elevation.
The Repeal of the Union Act will place Ireland on a
level, so far as concerns the well-being of its poor, with
her sister nation. Benevolent feeling has gone out
in this country in favour of the happiness of its inha-
bitants ; may this feeling be corroborated, methodized,
and continued ! May it never fail ! But it will not
be kept alive by each citizen sitting quietly by his own
fireside, and saying that things are going on well, be-
cause the rain does not beat on him, because he has
books and leisure to read them, because he has money
and is at liberty to accumulate luxuries to himself.
Generous feeling dictates no such sayings. When the
heart recurs to the thousands who have no liberty and
no leisure, it must be rendered callous by long con-
templation of wretchedness, if after such recurrence it
can beat with contented evenness. Why do I talk

27o PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

thus ? Is there any one who doubts that the present
state of politics and morals is wrong? They say
show us a safe method of improvement. There is no
safer than the corroboration and propagation of gene-
rous and philanthropic feeling, than the keeping con-
tinually alive a love for the human race, than the
putting in train causes which shall have for their con-
sequences virtue and freedom, and because I think that
individuals acting singly, with whatever energy, can
never effect so much as a society ; I propose that all
those whose views coincide with those that I have
avowed, who perceive the state of the public mind in
Ireland, who think the present a fit opportunity for
attempting to fix its fluctuations at Philanthropy j
who love all mankind, and are willing actively to
engage in its cause, or passively to endure the perse-
cutions of those who are inimical to its success; I
propose to these to form an association for the pur-
poses, first, of debating on the propriety of whatever
measures may be agitated ; and secondly, for carrying,
by united or individual exertion, such measures into
effect when determined on. That it should be an
association for discussing [diffusing?] knowledge and
virtue throughout the poorer classes of society in Ire-
land, for co-operating with any enlightened system of
education ; for discussing topics calculated to throw
light on any methods of alleviation of moral and poli-
tical evil, and, as far as lays in its power, actively in-
teresting itself, in whatever occasions may arise for
benefiting mankind.

When I mention Ireland, I do not mean to confine
the influence of the association to this or to any other
country, but for the time being. Moreover, I would
recommend that this association should attempt to

PROPOSALS FOR AN ASSOCIATION. 271

form others, and to actuate them with a similar spirit,
and I am thus indeterminate in my description of the
association which I propose, because I conceive that
an assembly of men meeting to do all the good that
opportunity will permit them to do, must be in its
nature as indefinite and varying as the instances of
human vice and misery that precede, occasion, and
call for its institution.

As political institution and its attendant evils con-
stitute the majority of those grievances which philan-
thropists desire to remedy, it is probable that existing
Governments will frequently become the topic of their
discussions, the results of which may little coincide
with the opinions which those who profit by the
supineness of human belief desire to impress upon the
world. It is probable that this freedom may excite
the odium of certain well-meaning people, who pin
their faith upon their grandmother's apron-string.
The minority in number are the majority in intellect
and power. The former govern the latter, though it
is by the sufferance of the latter that this originally
delegated power is exercised. This power is become
hereditary, and hath ceased to be necessarily united
with intellect.

It is certain, therefore, that any questioning of
established principles would excite the abhorrence and
opposition of those who derived power and honour
(such as it is) from their continuance.

As the association which I recommend would ques-
tion those principles (however they may be hedged in
with antiquity and precedent) which appeared ill
adapted for the benefit of human kind, it would pro-
bably excite the odium of those in power. It would
be obnoxious to the Government, though nothing

272 PERCY BTSSHE SHELLEY.

would be farther from the views of associated philan-
thropists than attempting to subvert establishments
forcibly, or even hastily. Aristocracy would oppose
it, whether oppositionists or ministerialists (for philan-
thropy is of no party), because its ultimate views look
to a subversion of all factitious distinctions, although
from its immediate intentions I fear that aristocracy
can have nothing to dread. The priesthood would
oppose it, because a union of Church and State — con-
trary to the principles and practice of Jesus, contrary
to that equality which he fruitlessly endeavoured to
teach mankind — is of all institutions that from the
rust of antiquity are called venerable, the least quali-
fied to stand free and cool reasoning, because it least
conduces to the happiness of human kind; yet did
either the minister, the peer, or the bishop know their
true interest, instead of that virulent opposition which
some among them have made to freedom and philan-
thropy, they would rejoice and co-operate with the
diffusion and corroboration of those principles that
would remove a load of paltry equivocation, paltrier
grandeur, and of wigs that crush into emptiness the
brains below them, from their shoulders, and by per-
mitting them to reassume the degraded and vilified
title of man would preclude the necessity of mystery
and deception, would bestow on them a title more
ennobling, and a dignity which, though it would be
without the gravity of an ape, would possess the ease
and consistency of a man.

For the reasons above alleged, falsely, prejudicedly,
and narrowly will those very persons whose ultimate
benefit is included in the general good, whose promo-
tion is the essence of a philanthropic association, will
they persecute those who have the best intentions
towards them, malevolence towards none.

PROPOSALS FOR AN ASSOCIATION. 273

I do not, therefore, conceal that those who make
the favour of Government the sunshine of their moral
day, confide in the political creed makers of the hour,
are willing to think things that are rusty and decayed
venerable, and are uninquiringly satisfied with evils as
these are, because they find them established and un-
questioned as they do sunlight and air when they
come into existence ; that they had better not even
think of philanthropy. I conceal not from them that
the discountenance which Government will show to
such an association as I am desirous to establish will
come under their comprehensive definition of danger :
that virtue, and any assembly instituted under its
auspices, demands a voluntariness on the part of its
devoted individuals to sacrifice personal to public
benefit ; and that it is possible that a party of beings
associated for the purposes of disseminating virtuous
principles, may, considering the ascendancy which long
custom has conferred on opposite motives to action,
meet with inconveniences that may amount to personal
danger. These considerations are, however, to the
mind of the philanthropist as is a drop to an ocean ;
they serve by their possible existence as tests whereby
to discover the really virtuous man from him who calls
himself a patriot for dishonourable and selfish purposes.
I propose then, to such as think with me, a Philan-
thropic Association, in spite of the danger that may
attend the attempt. I do not this beneath the shroud
of mystery and darkness. I propose not an Associa-
tion of Secrecy. Let it [be ?] open as the beam of
day. Let it rival the sunbeam in its stainless purity,
as in the extensiveness of its effulgence.

I disclaim all connexion with insincerity and con-
cealment. The latter implies the former, as much as

T

7?4 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

the former stands in need of the latter. It is a
very latitudinarian system of morality that permits its
professor to employ bad means for any end whatever.
Weapons which vice can use are unfit for the hands of
virtue. Concealment implies falsehood ; it is had, and
can therefore never he serviceable to the cause of
philanthropy.

I propose therefore that the association shall be
established and conducted in the open face of day,
with the utmost possible publicity. It is only vice
that hides itself in holes and corners, whose effrontery
shrinks from scrutiny, whose cowardice lets I dare not
wait upon I would, like the poor cat in the adage.
But the eye of virtue, eagie-like, darts through the
undazzling beam of eternal truth, and from the un-
diminished fountain of its purity gathers wherewith to
vivify and illuminate a universe.

I have hitherto abstained from inquiring whether
the association which I recommend be or be not con-
sistent with the English Constitution. And here it is
fit, briefly to consider what a constitution is.

Government can have no rights, it is a delegation
for the purpose of securing them to others. Man
becomes a subject of government, not that he may be
in a worse, but that he may be in a better state than
that of unorganized society. The strength of govern-
ment is the happiness of the governed. All govern-
ment existing for the happiness of others is just only
so far as it exists by their consent, and useful only
so far as it operates to their well-being. Constitu-
tion is to government what government is to law.
Constitution may, in this view of the subject, be
defined to be not merely something constituted for
the benefit of any nation or class of people, but some-

PROPOSALS FOR AN ASSOCIATION. -275

thing constituted by themselves for their own benefit.
The nations of England and Ireland have no con-
stitution, because at no one time did the individuals
that compose them constitute a system for the general
benefit. If a system determined on by a very few, at a
great length of time; if Magna Charta, the Bill of
Rights, and other usages for whose influence the im-
proved state of human knowledge is rather to be
looked to, than any system which courtiers pretend
to exist, and perhaps believe to exist — a system whose
spring of agency they represent as something secret,
undiscoverable, and awful as the law of nature ; if
these -make a constitution, then England has one.
But if (as I have endeavoured to show they do not) a
constitution is something else, then the speeches of
kings or commissioners, the writings of courtiers, and
the journals of Parliament, which teem with its glory,
are full of political cant, exhibit the skeleton of
national freedom, and are fruitless attempts to hide
evils in whose favour they cannot prove an alibi. As
therefore, in the true sense of the expression, the spot
of earth on which we live is destitute of constituted
government, it is impossible to offend against its
principles, or to be with justice accused of wishing to
subvert what has no real existence. If a man was
accused of setting fire to a house, which house never
existed, and from the nature of things could not have
existed, it is impossible that a jury in their senses
would find him guilty of arson. The English Consti-
tution then could not be offended by the principles of
virtue and freedom. In fact, the manner in which
the Government of England has varied since its earliest
establishment, proves that its present form is the result
of a progressive accommodation to existing principles.

T 2

276 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

It has been a continual struggle for liberty on the
part of the people,, and an uninterrupted attempt at
tightening the reins of oppression, and encouraging
ignorance and imposture by the oligarchy to whom
the first William parcelled out the property of the
aborigines at the conquest of England by the Normans.
I hear much of its being a tree so long growing which
to cut down is as bad as cutting down an oak where
there are no more. But the best way, on topics
similar to these, is to tell the plain truth, without the
confusion and ornament of metaphor. I call ex-
pressions similar to these political cant, which, like the
songs of " Rule Britannia" and " God save the King,"
are but abstracts of the caterpillar creed of courtiers,
cut down to the taste and comprehension of a mob ;
the one to disguise to an alehouse politician the evils
of that devilish practice of war, and the other to
inspire among clubs of all descriptions a certain feel-
ing which some call loyalty and others servility. A
Philanthropic Association has nothing to fear from
the English Constitution, but it may expect danger
from its government. So far, however, from thinking
this an argument against its institution, establishment,
and augmentation, I am inclined to rest much of the
weight of the cause, which my duties call upon me to
support, on the very fact that government forcibly in-
terferes when the opposition that is made to its pro-
ceedings is profoundly and undeniably nothing but
intellectual. A good cause may be shown to be good,
violence instantly renders bad what might before have
been good. " Weapons that falsehood can use are
unfit for the hands of truth " — truth can reason, and
falsehood cannot.

A political or religious system may burn and im-

PROPOSALS FOR AN ASSOCIATION. 277

prison those who investigate its principles; but it is
an invariable proof of their falsehood and hollowness.
Here there is another reason for the necessity of a
Philanthropic Association, and I call upon any fair
and rational opponent to controvert the argument
which it contains ; for there is no one who even calls
himself a philanthropist that thinks personal danger
or dishonour terrible in any other light than as it
affects his usefulness.

Man has a heart to feel, a brain to think, and a
tongue to utter. The laws of his moral as of his phy-
sical nature are immutable, as is everything of nature ;
nor can the ephemeral institutions of human society
take away those rights, annihilate or strengthen the
duties that have for their basis the imperishable rela-
tions of his constitution.

Though the Parliament of England were to pass
a thousand bills, to inflict upon those who determined
to utter their thoughts a thousand penalties, it could
not render that criminal which was in its nature
innocent before the passing of such bills.

Man has a right to feel, to think, and to speak,
nor can any acts of legislature destroy that right.
He will feel, he must think, and he ought to give
utterance to those thoughts and feelings with the
readiest sincerity and the strictest candour. A man
must have a right to do a thing before he can have
a duty; this right must permit before his duty
can enjoin him to any act. Any law is bad which
attempts to make it criminal to do what the plain
dictates within the breast of every man tell him that
he ought to do.

The English Government permits a fanatic to as-
semble any number of persons to teach them the most

278 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

extravagant and immoral systems of faith ; but a few
men meeting to consider its own principles are marked
with its hatred and pursued by its jealousy.

The religionist who agonizes the death-bed of the
cottager, and by picturing the hell which hearts black
and narrow as his own alone could have invented,
and which exists but in their cores, spreads the un-
charitable doctrines which devote heretics to eternal
torments, and represents heaven to be what earth is,
a monopoly in the hands of certain favoured ones
whose merit consists in slavishness, whose success is
the reward of sycophancy. Thus much is permitted,
but a public inquiry that involves any doubt of their
rectitude into the principles of government is not per-
mitted. When Jupiter and a countryman were one
day walking out, conversing familiarly on the affairs
of earth, the countryman listened to Jupiter's asser-
tions on the subject for some time in acquiescence, at
length happening to hint a doubt, Jupiter threatened
him with his thunder. "Ah, ah," says the country-
man, " now, Jupiter, I know that you are wrong ; you
are always wrong when you appeal to your thunder/'
The essence of virtue is disinterestedness. Disinte-
restedness is the quality which preserves the character
of virtue distinct from that of either innocence or
vice. This, it will be said, is mere assertion. It is
so : but it is an assertion whose truth, I believe, the
hearts of philanthropists are disinclined to deny.
Those who have been convinced by their grandam
of the doctrine of an original hereditary sin, or by
the apostles of a degrading philosophy of the neces-
sary and universal selfishness of man, cannot be phil-
anthropists. Now as an action, or a motive to action,
is only virtuous so far as it is disinterested, or par-

PROPOSALS FOR AN ASSOCIATION. 279

takes (I adopt this mode of expression to suit the
taste of some) of the nature of generalized self-love,
then reward or punishment, attached even by omni-
potence to any action, can in no wise make it either
good or bad.

It is no crime to act in contradiction to an English
judge or an English legislator, but it is a crime to
transgress the dictates of a monitor which feels the
spring of every motive, whose throne is the human
sensorium, whose empire the human conduct. Con-
science is a government before which all others sink
into nothingness ; it surpasses, and where it can act
supersedes, all other as nature surpasses art, as God
surpasses man.

In the preceding pages, during the course of an
investigation of the possible objections which might be
urged by philanthropy to an association such as I
recommend, as I have rather sought to bring forward
than conceal my principles, it will appear that they
have their origin from the discoveries in the sciences
of politics and morals which preceded and occasioned
the revolutions of America and France. It is with
openness that I confess, nay, with pride I assert, that
they are so. The names of Paine and Lafayette will out-
live the p[o]etic aristocracy of an expatriated Jesuit,*
as the executive of a bigoted policy will die before the
disgust at the sycophancy of their eulogists can sub-
side.

It will be said perhaps that much as principles
such as these may appear marked on the outside with
peace, liberty, and virtue, that their ultimate tendency
is to a Revolution which, like that of France, will end

* See Memoires de Jacobinisme, par 1'Abbe Baruel.

28D PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

in bloodshed, vice, and slavery. I must offer there-
fore my thoughts on that event which so suddenly
and so lamentably extinguished the overstrained hopes
of liberty which it excited. I do not deny that the
Revolution of France was occasioned by the literary
labours of the encyclopaedists. When we see two
events together, in certain cases we speak of one as
the cause, the other the effect. We have no other
idea of cause and effect but that which arises from
necessary connexion ; it is therefore still doubtful
whether D^Alembert, Boulanger, Condorcet, and other
celebrated characters, were the causes of the overthrow
of the ancient monarchy of France. Thus much is
certain, that they contributed greatly to the extension
and diffusion of knowledge, and that knowledge is
incompatible with slavery. The French nation was
bowed to the dust by ages of uninterrupted despotism.
They were plundered and insulted by a succession of
oligarchies, each more bloodthirsty and unrelenting
than the foregoing. In a state like this her soldiers
learned to fight for Freedom on the plains of America,
whilst at this very conjuncture a ray of science burst
through the clouds of bigotry that obscured the moral
day of Europe. The French were in the lowest state
of human degradation, and when the truth, unaccus-
tomed to their ears, that they were men and equals,
was promulgated, they were the first to vent their
indignation on the monopolizers of earth, because they
were most glaringly defrauded of the immunities of
nature.

Since the French were furthest removed by the so-
phistications of political institution from the genuine
condition of human beings, they must have been most
unfit for that happy state of equal law which proceeds

PROPOSALS FOR AN ASSOCIATION. 281

from consummated civilization, and which demands
habits of the strictest virtue before its introduction.

The murders during the period of the French Re-
volution, and the despotism which has since been
established, prove that the doctrines of philanthropy
and freedom were but shallowly understood. Nor
was it until after that period that their principles
became clearly to be explained, and unanswerably to
be established.

Voltaire was the flatterer of kings, though in his
heart he despised them — so far has he been instru-
mental in the present slavery of his country. Rousseau
gave licence by his writings to passions that only in-
capacitate and contract the human heart — so far hath
he prepared the necks of his fellow-beings for that
yoke of galling and dishonourable servitude which at
this moment it bears. Helvetius and Condorcet
established principles, but if they drew conclusions,
their conclusions were unsystematical, and devoid of
the luminousness and energy of method. They were
little understood in the Revolution. But this age of
ours is not stationary. Philosophers have not de-
veloped the great principles of the human mind that
conclusions from them should be unprofitable and
impracticable. We are in a state of continually pro-
gressive improvement. One truth that had been dis-
covered can never die, but will prevent the revivifi-
cation of its apportioned opposite falsehood. By
promoting truth and discouraging its opposite, the
means of philanthropy are principally to be forwarded.
Godwin wrote during the Revolution of France, and
certainly his writings were totally devoid of influence
with regard to its purposes. Oh ! that they had not !
In the Revolution of France were engaged men whose

282 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

names are inerasable from the records of Liberty.
Their genius penetrated with a glance the gloom and
glare which Church- craft and State-craft had spread
before the imposture and villany of their establish-
ments. They saw the world. Were they men ? Yes !
They felt for it ! They risked their lives and happi-
ness for its benefit ! Had there been more of those
men France would not now be a beacon to warn us
of the hazard and horror of Revolutions, but a pattern
of society rapidly advancing to a state of perfection,
and holding out an example for the gradual and
peaceful regeneration of the world. I consider it to
be one of the effects of a Philanthropic Association to
assist in the production of such men as these, in an
extensive development of those germs of excellence
whose favourite soil is the cultured garden of the
human mind.

Many well-meaning persons may think that the
attainment of the good which I propose as the ulti-
matum of philanthropic exertion is visionary and
inconsistent with human nature ; they would tell me
not to make people happy for fear of overstocking
the world, and to permit those who found dishes
placed before them on the table of partial nature to
enjoy their superfluities in quietness, though millions
of wretches crowded around but to pick a morsel,*
which morsel was still refused to the prayers of
agonizing famine.

I cannot help thinking this an evil, nor help en-
deavouring, by the safest means that I can devise, to
palliate at present, and in fine to eradicate this evil.
War, vice, and misery are undeniably bad, they embrace

* See Malthas on Population.

PROPOSA LS FOR AN ASSOCIA TION. 283

all that we can conceive of temporal and eternal evil.
Are we to be told that these are remediless, because
the earth would, in case of their remedy, be over-
stocked? That the rich are still to glut, that the
ambitious are still to plan, that the fools whom these
knaves mould, are still to murder their brethren and
call it glory, and that the poor are to pay with their
blood, their labour, their happiness, and their inno-
cence for the crimes and mistakes which the here-
ditary monopolists of earth commit ? Rare sophism !
How will the heartless rich hug thee to their bosoms,
and lull their conscience into slumber with the opiate
of thy reconciling dogmas !

But when the philosopher and philanthropist con-
templates the universe, when he perceives existing
evils that admit of amendment, and hears tell of other
evils, which, in the course of sixty centuries, may again
derange the system of happiness which the amend-
ment is calculated to produce, does he submit to pro-
long a positive evil, because if that were eradicated,
after a millennium of 6oco years (for such space of
time would it take to people the earth) another evil
would take place.

To how contemptible a degradation of grossest credu-
lity will not prejudice lower the human mind ! We
see in winter that the foliage of the trees is gone, that
they present to the view nothing but leafless branches —
we see that the loveliness of the flower decays, though
the root continues in the earth. What opinion should
we form of that man who, when he walked in the
freshness of the spring, beheld the fields enamelled
with flowers, and the foliage bursting from the buds,
should find fault with all this beautiful order, and
murmur his contemptible discontents because winter

284 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

must come, and the landscape be robbed of its beauty
for a while again ? Yet this man is Mr. Malthus.
Do we not see that the laws of nature perpetually act
by disorganization and reproduction, each alternately
becoming cause and effect. The analogies that we can
draw from physical to moral topics are of all others
the most striking.

Does any one yet question the possibility of inducing
radical reform of moral and political evil ? Does h *
object from that impossibility to the association which
I propose, which I frankly confess to be one of the
means whose instrumentality I would employ to attain
this reform. Let them look to the methods which I
use. Let them put my object out of their view and
propose their own, how would they accomplish it ?
By diffusing virtue and knowledge, by promoting
human happiness. Palsied be the hand, for ever dumb
be the tongue that would by one expression convey
sentiments differing from these : I will use no bad
means for any end whatever. Know then, ye philan-
thropists, to whatever profession of faith, or whatever
determination of principles, chance, reason, or educa-
tion may have conducted you, that the endeavours of
the truly virtuous necessarily converge to one point,
though it be hidden from them what point that is,
they all labour for one end, and that controversies con-
cerning the nature of that end serve only to weaken
the strength which for the interest of virtue should be
consolidated.

The diffusion of true and virtuous principles (for in
the first principles of morality none disagree) will pro-
duce the best of possible terminations.

I invite to an Association of Philanthropy those of
whatever ultimate expectations, who will employ the

PROPOSALS FOR AN ASSOCIATION. 285

same means that I employ; let their designs differ as
much as they may from mine, I shall rejoice at their
co-operation; because if the ultimatum of my hopes
be founded on the unity of truth, I shall then have
auxiliaries in its cause, and if it be false I shall
rejoice that means are not neglected for forwarding
that which is true.

The accumulation of evil which Ireland has for the
last twenty years sustained, and considering the un-
remittingness of its pressure I may say patiently sus-
tained ; the melancholy prospect which the unforeseen
conduct of the Regent of England holds out of its
continuance, demands of every Irishman whose pulses
have not ceased to throb with the life-blood of his
heart, that he should individually consult, and unitedly
determine on some measures for the liberty of his
countrymen. That those measures should be pacific
though resolute, that their movers should be calmly
brave and temperately unbending, though the whole
heart and soul should go with the attempt, is the
opinion which my principles command me to give.

And I am induced to call an association such as
this occasion demands, an Association of Philan-
thropy, because good men ought never to circum-
scribe their usefulness by any name which denotes
their exclusive devotion to the accomplishment of its
signification.

When I began the preceding remarks I conceived
that on the removal of the restrictions from the
Regent a ministry less inimical than the present to
the interests of liberty would have been appointed. I
am deceived, and the disappointment of the hopes of
freedom on this subject affords an additional argument
towards the necessity of an Association.

286 PERCY BYSSffE SHELLEY.

I conclude these remarks, which I have indited
principally with a view of unveiling my principles,
with a proposal for an Association for the purposes of
Catholic Emancipation, a repeal of the Union Act,
and grounding upon the attainment of these objects
a reform of whatever moral or political evil may be
within its compass of human power to remedy.

Such as are favourably inclined towards the insti-
tution would highly gratify the Proposer if they would
personally communicate with him on this important
subject, by which means the plan might be matured,
errors in the Proposer's original system be detected,
and a meeting for the purpose convened with that
resolute expedition which the nature of the present
crisis demands.

No. 7, Lower Sackville Street.

PINTS.

*£* The two allusions to the " unforeseen conduct" of the Prince
Regent with which in the preceding page Shelley concludes this
pamphlet, are identical in spirit with the observations attributed to
one of the speakers at the meeting in Fishamble Street Theatre on
the 28th of February, 1812, four days before the pamphlet ap-
peared. The report, which I have extracted from the State Papers
in the Record Office, has already been given at p. 238. The private
Reporter for the Government, referring to a certain resolution, thus
writes: — " On this resolution, a young boy delivered a speech of
considerable length and replete with much elegant language," &c.
At p. 239 I have suggested that in transcribing his notes the Re-
porter substituted by accident the name of " Mr. Wyse" for " Mr.
Shelley." The passages in the pamphlet establish almost conclu-
sively that this surmise is correct.

CHAPTER XL

T7ROM some unpublished letters of Shelley and Har-
riet Shelley, particularly from that most interest-
ing one from Harriet seized at Holyhead, which the
present writer discovered in the Record Office, and
which hitherto has been unknown, a tolerably com-
plete account can be given of Shelley's remaining
stay in Dublin. The letters to Godwin, which may
be seen in the second volume of Mr. Hogg's incom-
plete Life of the poet, are extremely vague, and give
no precise details. Both poet and philosopher were
merely showing off to each other in profound and ab-
stract essays. Mr. Godwin could scarcely have been
the friend of Curran if he was not in favour of that
" political justice " to Ireland which he advocated for
all mankind. The great point with him in his replies
to the young " Philanthropist " was to show that
Shelley had no right to deduce the principle, or at
least the expediency of " association" from the pages
of Political Justice. His only allusion to the affairs
of Ireland was a comparison of Shelley with Robert
Emmett, which I dare say gave intense enjoyment to
the poet. Shelley died before the peaceful triumph
of the " Catholic Association " proved that he was
right and Godwin wrong as to the mode of obtaining
political amelioration under the British Constitution.
Mr. Godwin himself received the office, which happily

288 PERCY BYSSEE SHELLEY.

made his latter days comfortable, from a Government
which was mainly floated into power by the Reform
League. The duties of yeoman-usher of the Exche-
quer were not so excessive as to prevent him looking
occasionally into his collection of old letters. It
would be curious to have seen him read the following
passage from one of them addressed to him in 1812
from Dublin,, by the young man in whose "letters and
history" " all the females of his family, Mrs. G., and
three daughters " were so much interested (Hogg, vol.
ii. p. 100). Shelley, writing from Sackville Street,
Dublin, March 8th, 1812, says, " I am not forgetful or
unheeding of what you said of association. But
Political Justice was first published in 3793; nearty
twenty years have elapsed since the general diffusion
of its doctrines. What has followed ? Have men
ceased to fight ? Have vice and misery vanished from
the earth ? Have the fireside communications which
it recommends taken place ? Out of the many who
have read that inestimable book, how many have been
blinded by prejudice ? How many, in short, have taken
it up to gratify an ephemeral vanity, and when the
hour of its novelty had passed, threw it aside, and
yielded with, fashion to the arguments of Mr. Mal-
thus?" — Hogg^ol. ii. p. 92.*

* In Shelley's second pamphlet, Proposals for an Association,
&c , there is, as we have seen, the following brief allusion to Godwin,
which that philosopher must have read with amazement in the copy
presented to himself. Perhaps the whole pamphlet may not have been
sent to Godwin, Shelley confining himself to those parts extracted
in The Weekly Messenger, March yth, ] 812, the receipt of which
Godwin acknowledged : — " Godwin wrote during the Revolution of
France, and certainly his writings were totally devoid of influence
with regard to its purposes — Oh ! that they had not !" — Propo-
sals for an Association, &c., p. 14.

INTEREST OF GODWIN'S FAMILY IN SHELLEY. 289

These unpleasant allusions were too much for the
philosopher. So in his next letter he addresses his
young catechist in these abrupt terms : — te Shelley,
you are preparing a scene of blood/' &c. "I wish to
my heart you would come immediately to London. I
have a friend who has contrived a tube to convey pas-
sengers sixty miles an hour. Be youth your tube !
I have a thousand things I could say orally, more than
I can say in a letter on this important subject. Away !
You cannot imagine how much all the females of my
family, Mrs. G. and three daughters, are interested
in your letters and your history." — Hotyg, vol. ii. pp.
99, TOO.

The most interesting part of Godwin's letter is that
which gives a sort of foreshadowing of the atmospheric
mode of locomotion and the swiftness of the " Irish
Mail/' which latter " conveys passengers" without the
aid of " a tube" (except the bridge at .Bangor) exactly
in the time calculated on by Godwin's friend.

Before the loth of March, 1812, Shelley had re-
moved from 7, Lower Sackville Street, Dublin, to 17,
Grafton Street, in the same city. In 1812 the house
17, Grafton Street, was occupied by " Robert Williams,
goldsmith and jeweller." It now forms part of the
large establishment of Messrs. Brown, Thomas, and Co.
Long as the following extracts are, they form but a
portion of an exceedingly interesting and hitherto un-
published letter, the joint composition of Shelley and
Harriet, which was addressed to their friend at Hurst-
pierpoint. I shall give the extracts first, and then
offer such explanations as may seem necessary : —

apo PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

Shelley to Miss Hitchener.

" 17, Grafton Street, March loth, 1812.
" MY DEAR FRIEND,, — .... I cannot recount all the
horrible instances of unrestricted and licensed tyranny
that have met my ears : an Irishman has been torn from
his wife and family in Lisbon because he was a patriot,
and compelled to serve as a common soldier in the
Portuguese army by that monster of anti-patriotic in-
humanity, Beresford, the idol of the belligerents. You
will soon see a copy of his letter, and soon hear of my

and Sir F. Burdett's exertion in his favour We

shall be free ; this nation shall awaken It is

attended with circumstances singularly characteristic
of cowardice and tyranny. My blood boils to think
of it. A poor boy, whom I found starving in a hiding-
place of unutterable filth and misery, whom I rescued
and was about to teach to read, has been snatched on
a charge of false and villanous effrontery to a magis-
trate of Hell, who gave him the alternative of the
[illegible ; perhaps " treadmill"] or military servitude.
He preferred neither, yet was compelled to be a soldier.
This has come to my knowledge this evening. I am
resolved to present this business to the very jaws of
Government, snatching if possible the poison from

its fangs I am sick of this city, and long to be

with you in peace. The rich grind the poor into ab-
jectedness, and then complain that they are abject.
They grind them to famine, and hang them if they
steal a loaf. .... Your new suggestion of our join-
ing you at Hurst is divine. It shall be so. I have
not shown Harriet or E. your letter yet; they are
walking with a Mr. Lawless (a valuable man) whilst I
write this. . . . . In a day or two I shall make up

SHELLEY ON THE SOCIAL STATE OF DUBLIN. 291

a parcel to you which will come per coach ; it is a
terrible mistake that of the last — the blundering
honest Irishman we have came without it. Send me
the Sussex papers. Insist or make them insert the
account of me. It may have a good effect on the
mind of the people as a preparation. I send you two
[probably " papers"] to-night. The association pro-
ceeds slowly, and I fear will not be established

I may succeed, but I fear I shall not in the main
object [i.e., of establishing an association.] Dublin is
the most difficult of all. In Wales I fear not. In
Lewes fear is ridiculous."

Harriet's Postscript.

" Has Percy mentioned to you a very amiable man
of the name of Lawless ? He is very much attached

to the cause, yet not in it We have this

morning been introduced to his wife. She is a very

nice woman, though not equal to him What

has the Duke of Norfolk been saying of us ? Now tell

me, as I think I can confute his Lordship

We have heard from Godwin. Suqh letters ! You

must long to read them, I am sure But I

know you now, and this blessing I should not have
had if I had never been to Clapham. So I must be
content, and think myself very happy that I did go,
though I was not aware of the happiness that would
result/'

The page is signed " P. B. S."

Except for the date and place, " Keswick, Jan. 7th,
1812," assigned by Mr. Rossetti to the poem entitled
Mother and Son, which is published by him in
his edition of Shelley (vol. ii. p. 526), we should have

U 2

292 ' PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

attributed the inspiration of that effusion to the inci-
dents recorded in the foregoing letter written from
Dublin, March loth, 1812. The compulsory enlist-
ment of the Irish patriot in Lisbon and the treatment
of the boy seem to be referred to in the following
lines : —

" But when the tyrant's bloodhounds forced the child
For his cursed power unhallowed arms to wield."

It may, however, have been the former incident
alone, which perhaps he heard of at Keswick, that
formed the subject of the poem Mother and Son. The
charge against the boy referred to in Shelley's letter
of March loth, was for stealing a roll, "value one
penny." The " magistrate of helP may have been
the famous Major Sirr. The allusion to Sir Francis
Burdett is curious. A year later, as is evident from
the interesting papers in the Record Office referring
to Shelley's proceedings at Lymouth, he was in
constant correspondence with that celebrated . per-
sonage. In fact his letters to Sir Francis Burdett
were so numerous as to attract the notice of the post-
master at Barnstaple, who communicated the circum-
stance to Mr.— subsequently Sir — Francis Freeling.
These letters, if preserved, would possess a singular
interest. After the lapse of so many years, and the
settlement of most of the questions discussed therein,
no impropriety would be involved in their being made
public. From some inquiries, however, which I have
made, I am inclined to believe that the letters are not
now in existence. The mention of Mr. Lawless is
important. This remarkable man, who is still well
remembered even in England under his popular title
of t( Honest Jack," seems to have been the only friend
of any literary or social position (of course excepting

MR. JOHN LA WLESS. 293

Curran, with whom he dined twice) that Shelley made
in Dublin. Lawless was, we have little doubt, the
writer of the article in The Weekly Messenger* which
appeared on the Saturday preceding the day on which
Harriet and Eliza Westbrook were introduced to his
wife. Shelley's and Harriet's liking for Mr. and Mrs.
Lawless was shared even by the cynical Mr. Hogg, as
we find from that eccentric gentleman's account of
his own visit to Dublin in 1813. At present we can
only refer to Mr. Lawless in connexion with Shelley's
first visit. Before doing so it will be more convenient
to conclude our explanation of the remaining allusions
in Shelley's and Harriet's letter of March loth. The
mistake in sending the pamphlets by post both to
Miss Kitchener and Godwin has already been men-
tioned. The " blundering honest Irishman" was
Daniel Hill, who, as we afterwards shall find, suffered
six months imprisonment at Barnstaple for distri-
buting some of Shelley's political broadsides there,
though he had done precisely the same thing in
Dublin without any hindrance.

The two papers sent to Miss Kitchener were pro-
bably The Weekly Messenger and The Dublin Journal
of March 7th, 1812. "The account of me" which he
requests his friend to get inserted in the Sussex
papers, was doubtless the same " account of ME"
referred to by Shelley in his letter to Godwin of

* The first editor of The Weekly Messenger was Frederick
William Conway, subsequently the well-known editor and pro-
prietor of The Dublin Evening Post. Mr. Lawless was after-
wards editor of The Weekly Messenger, to which he had been a
contributor from the beginning. For a curious statement of Mr.
Conway in reference to Shelley's visit to Dublin, see post, p. 304.

2p4 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

March 8th — the article headed " Pierce Byshe Shelly,
Esq./' which we have already given.

The following letter of Harriet Shelley, which is
now printed for the first time, will be read with pain-
ful interest. One cannot help regretting that the
peaceful future she once pictured to herself was not
her fate. The letter may be considered something
in the light of a general confession made to one who
was singularly ill-suited and incompetent to be her
directress : —

Harriet Shelley to Miss Hit chener ; from an

unpublished letter.

" 17, Grafton Street, Dublin, March I4th, 1812.
" . . . When I lived with my father I was not likely
to gain much knowledge, as our circle of acquaintances
was very limited, he not thinking it proper that we should
mix much with society. In short, we very seldom visited
those places of fashionable amusement which for our age
might have been expected : -'twas but seldom I visited
my home, school having witnessed the greater part of
my life; but do not think from this I was ignorant
of what was passing in the great world. Books and
newspapers were sufficient to inform me of these.
Though then a silent spectator, yet did I look with a
fearful eye upon the vices of the great, and thought to
myself -'twas better to gain my bread with my needle
than be the inhabitant of those great houses where
misery and famine howl around. I will tell you my
faults, knowing what I have to expect from your friend-
ship. Kemember my youth, and if any excuse can be
made let that suffice. In London, you know, there
are military as everywhere else ; when quite a child I
admired these red-coats, and I thought the military

A UTOBIOQRA PHICA L SKETCH OF HA RRIET. 295

the best and most fascinating men in the world, though
at the same time I used to declare my determination
never to marry one. This was not so much on account
of their vices, as from the idea of their being killed. I
thought if I married any one it should be a clergyman.
Strange idea this, was it not? But being brought
up in the Christian religion, 'twas this first gave rise
to it. You may conceive with what horror I first
heard that Percy was an atheist. At first I did not
comprehend the meaning of the word, therefore when
it was explained I was truly petrified. I wondered
how he could live a moment professing such prin-
ciples, and solemnly declared that he never should
change mine."

The remainder of this autobiographical sketch may
be given at another time. I pass on to that portion
of it referring to Shelley. The following passage
fixes the date at which the poet first began to abstain
from the use of animal food. In this, as in every-
thing else, poor Harriet adopted the views of her hus-
band. The change in their mode of living, which on
the whole must be considered to have been an unwise
one for both, commenced at Dublin on or about the,
ist of March, 1812. Harriet, continuing her letter to
Miss Kitchener, says : —

" You do not know that we have forsworn meat and
adopted the Pythagorean system ; about a fortnight
has elapsed since the change, and we do not find our-
selves the worse for it. ... Have you heard any-
thing of the Habeas Corpus Act being suspended ? I
have been very much alarmed at the intelligence,
though I hope it is ill-founded. If it is not, where we
shall be is not known, as from Percy's having made

296 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

himself so busy in the cause of this poor country,
he has raised himself many enemies who would take
advantage of such a time and instantly exercise their
vengeance upon him." . . .

In the same letter Shelley writes : —

" I do not like Lord Fin gal or any of the Catholic
aristocracy. Their intolerance can be equalled by
nothing but the hardy wickedness and falsehood of
the Prince. My speech was misinterpreted. I spoke
for more than an hour. The hisses with which they
greeted me when I spoke of religion, though in terms
of respect, were mixed with applause when I avowed
rny mission. The newspapers have only noted that
which did not excite disapprobation. As to an Asso-
ciation, my hopes daily grow fainter on this subject, as
my perception of its necessity strengthens. I shall
soon, however, have the command of a newspaper with
Mr. Lawless, of whom I shall tell more. This will be
a powerful engine of amelioration. Mr. L., though
he regards my ultimate hope as visionary, is willing to
acquiesce in my views. He is a republican. Adieu.
Believe that we are yours. We will live with you at
Hurst. What think you of a journey to Italy in the
autumn ?"

There is little requiring explanation in this post-
script of Shelley. The few hisses which he received
at the meeting in Fishamble Street Theatre seemed to
have rested on his mind more than the enthusiastic
applause which we learn from " An Englishman"''' he
received. Southey mentions an Eastern proverb which
declares that the feeling of pain produced by the
smallest thorn of the rose far exceeds that of pleasure
which its sweetest perfume can bestow. So it was

SHELLEY ENGAGED ON A HISTORY OF IRELAND. 297

with the sensitive young orator. As to the "intole-
rance" of Lord Fingal and the Catholic aristocracy,
we may safely limit it to a disinclination to listen
to Shelley's mode of speaking of "religion" even.
" though in terms of respect."

The expectation of having a newspaper at his com-
mand in conjunction with Mr. Lawless is very curious.
It was evidently a part of the same project alluded to
in the following letter, written six days later, to Mr.
Medwin senior, which has hitherto been a puzzle to
Shelley's numerous biographers : —

"Dublin, No. 17, Grafton Street,
" March 2oth, 1812.

" MY DEAR SIR, — The tumult of business and
travelling has prevented my addressing you before.

" I am now engaged with a literary friend in the
publication of a voluminous History of Ireland, of
which two hundred and fifty pages are already printed,
and for the completion of which I wish to raise two
hundred and fifty pounds. I could obtain undeniable
security for its payment at the expiration of eighteen
months. Can you tell me how I ought to proceed?
The work will produce great profits. As you will see
by the Lewes paper, I am in the midst of overwhelming
engagements. My kindest regards to all your family.
Be assured I shall not forget them or you.
" My dear Sir, yours very truly,

" P. B. SHELLEY.
" T. C. Medwin, Esq., Horsham, Sussex, England."

The name of this " literary friend" of Shelley has
hitherto baffled inquiry. There can be no doubt that
he was Mr. John Lawless, and that the History of
Ireland alluded to by Shelley, of which two hundred
and fifty pages were printed in 1812, was the Compen-

298 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

dium of the History of Ireland, published by Mr. Law-
less in 1 8 [4.*

A sketch of the life of this remarkable man would
be interesting and valuable, but the limits of this pub-
lication preclude the possibility of my entering upon it
at present. An account of his death, and an interesting
letter from his son Philip Lawless, Esq., Barrister-at-
law, to the author, with some extracts from the State
Papers, will be found at the end of this volume, Appen-
dix No. 2.

One fact, however, must be mentioned in this
place, not for its possible reference to Mr. Lawless,
though that he was the person alluded to by the
writer about to be quoted there can be little doubt,
but for the singular interest it possesses of being the
first instance recorded of Shelley's pecuniary generosity
to his friends— few in number indeed, but making up
by their concentrated avidity for the more diffuse vo-
raciousness of a wider circle. To what extent those
inroads not only on Shelley's purse, but occasionally
on the very furniture of his house, were carried, may
be learned from the curious statement in the second
series of Miss Mitford's Letters, recently published.

* " Compendium of the History of Ireland, from the Earliest
Period to the Reign of George I. By John Lawless, Esq., a
Member of the Catholic Board. Dublin: 1814." The work, though
not published till that year, was well known to be in preparation
shortly after Shelley left Dublin. The following curious allusion
to it will be found in Dr. Brenan's Milesian Magazine for July,
1812, p. 87. " Jack Squintum" was the sobriquet of John Lawless
in this scurrilous publication : — •

"JACK SQUINTUM'S HISTOEY or IRELAND. The public will
learn, with much attention, that a history of Ireland, from the
Creation to the present hour, is about to be published by that illus-
trious literator Jack Squintum."

THE PHILOSOPHERS STONE. 299

From this suggestive picture of the domestic life of
Shelley it will be seen that the airy and pleasant Mr.
Harold Skimpole — that self-denying sybarite, content
indeed with " claret and Naples biscuits," but pocket-
ing in one sum a thousand pounds of his friend's
money as if it were a delicious bit of pleasantry —
quite a trifle indeed where two such men of genius
were concerned — could carry off the same friend's
chairs and tables when the more direct resources of
his purse were exhausted. Another well-drawn figure
in Miss Mitford's View of an Interior is that of the
philosophical Mr. Godwin. In 1807, as we have seen,
the author of Political Justice had some difficulty
about his " little bills," and applied to an Irish Judge,
the Right Honourable John Philpot Curran, for the
modest sum of 300^., which he probably obtained.
If St. Leon did not discover the Elixir of Life, he
certainly found the Philosopher's Stone, and contrived
to turn the enthusiasm of his friends into a good deal
of solid gold. In 1817, Shelley stood in a nearer re-
lationship to Godwin than he had done in 1812, when
he received from his future father-in -law the letter of in-
troduction to Curran. The Philosopher's Stone had by
that time lost a little of its virtue, perhaps from over use,
so that the author of Mandeville had to work on the
original of that character by a more potent talisman.
After mentioning the clean sweep of Shelley's " chairs
and tables and bedsteads \" by Mr. Skimpole, the
merciless Miss Mitford thus continues : — " And Mr.
Godwin, his papa-in-law, was much worse : he used to
threaten to stab himself if his dutiful son-in-law
would not accept his bills. Only fancy him down on
his knees, flourishing a drawn dagger, and talking
tragedy \" — Miss Mitford's Letters, Second Series.

300 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

Miss Mitford adds to these curious details the pithy
remark, " But it was no joke to poor Mr. Shelley."
It certainly was not. There was very little comedy
on his side in the intercourse between himself and his
friends. On the whole it was rather tragic. Speak-
ing of one of the earliest chosen and the most boastful
of the number, Shelley, in a letter still extant, thus
wrote within three months after his marriage with
Harriet Westbrook — "'He attempted to seduce my
wife \" That attempt, it is to be feared, was the
beginning of his greatest misfortune, if it had not a
more direct bearing on the catastrophe of Harrietts
suicide. It is to be hoped that this deliberate inten-
tion to " filch " from him his te good name," and what
ought to be dearer to him almost than that, was a
solitary crime ; but of the rest of lago's speech one
line was certainly applicable to Shelley. Of the
" trash" which was seldom allowed to remain long in
the purse of the poet, he might well have said,
alluding to almost any of his friends : —

" 'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands."

We have seen that it was in Dublin Shelley received
his first recognition as a poet. That was in the interest-
ing article in The Weekly Messenger of March yth, 1812.
It is a curious fact that the earliest introduction of
Shelley's name to the English public did not take place
until four years and nine months after this date ! If
the reader refers to the article alluded to, p. 253 of the
present volume, and compares its warm and generous
tone with the frigid and half-apologetic terms in which
so late as December, 1816, Leigh Hunt for the first
time mentions the name of Shelley, he will not only
be surprised, but perhaps enlightened as to the popular

YOUNG POETS. 301

fallacy of Hunt's early knowledge and appreciation of
Shelley's genius. Nearly six years after Shelley wrote
to him from Oxford — more than five years after Shelley
had published a poem in sustainment of a man whose
story had been told at such length by Leigh Hunt
himself — more than three years after Queen Mob had
been printed and presumably presented to the editor
of The Examiner, and more than two years after the
author of that poem is represented as visiting the in-
carcerated editor — " the wit in the dungeon/' as Lord
Byron in a sudden fit of good humour called him —
we find Shelley thus spoken of by Leigh Hunt. It
will be seen that Shelley had sent some poetical con-
tributions to The Examiner j which the editor had not
thought worth preserving. The article is devoted to
three " YOUNG POETS." It is curious that as much
space is given to the only one of the three that failed
to realize the expectations formed of him as to the
other two. These were Shelley and Keats. Eleven
timid lines are given to Shelley. It will be perceived
that Leigh Hunt confesses he had seen no specimen
of Shelley's poetry up to December ist, 1816, except
those manuscript contributions offered to The Exa-
miner, which speedily found their way to the waste-
paper basket. It is thus —

" With bated breath and whispering humbleness"

that Leigh Hunt introduces to the British public the
name of Percy Bysshe Shelley : —

" YOUNG POETS.

" The object of the present article is merely to no-
tice three young writers, who appear to us to promise
a considerable addition of strength to the new school.

302 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

Of the first who came before us, we have, it is true,
yet seen only one or two specimens, and these were
no sooner sent us than we unfortunately mislaid them ;
but we shall procure what he has published, and if the
rest answer to what we have seen, we shall have no
hesitation in announcing him for a very striking and
original thinker. His name is PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY,
and he is the author of a poetical work, entitled
Alastor, or the Spirit of Solitude.'3 — The Examiner,
Dec. ist, 1816.

It is sad to think that the deplorable suicide of
Harriet Shelley must in all probability have occurred
a day or two after the appearance of this first public
recognition (in England) of her husband. Shelley
legalized his connexion with Mary Godwin on the
3oth of December, 1816. The article in The Examiner
appeared on the ist December. Harriet's suicide
took place in the same month. " In December, 18 1 6"
says Mr. Peacock, " Harriet drowned herself in the
Serpentine river, and to her father's house in Chapel-
street his daughter's body was carried" (Fraser's
Magazine, January, 1860, p. 100). The exact date is
not given, but it is almost certain that the catastrophe
occurred very early in the month. The commonest
decency or humanity, not to speak of legal impedi-
ments, including the holding of a coroner's inquest,
which doubtless took place, though no report of it has
been yet discovered, might be supposed to have neces-
sitated a delay of over three weeks before the formal
ceremony of marriage was gone through by Shelley
and his second wife. This brings us very near the
ist of December, on which day this perhaps fatal
notice of " a very striking and original thinker" — and

SUICIDE OF HARRIET. 303

actor — was published. " His name is PERCY BYSSHB
SHELLEY/" says Leigh Hunt, introducing with rather
faint eulogy his recently discovered friend to the
English public. There was one at least in England
who, unhappily for herself, knew that name too well.
For five years she had borne it. Three years before
this tf young poet" was openly spoken of in an English
journal, she had been " the inspiration of his song"
and his sole public. Who can doubt the bitterness of
her recollection if she read (as there can be but little
doubt that she did read) the paragraph in The Exa-
miner ? What a contrast to the pride and joy with
which more than four years earlier she must have
drank in with delighted eyes the far more emphatic
praises of her husband in The Dublin Weekly Mes-
senger of 7th March, 1812 ! She was then the
associate in his plans, the sharer of his dreams and of
his hopes — his " purer mind." Well might Shelley
say, as if alluding to that period, and addressing
her (though the lines are capable of another interpre-
tation)—

" That time is dead for ever, child,
Drowned, frozen, dead for ever !"

And what was she in December, 1816? As yet we
do not fully know. But the end is given in the line
just quoted, written nearly a year afterwards —

" Drowned, frozen, dead for ever !"

That is the practical answer which we have to those
frenzied questionings which doubtless drove the poor
abandoned " child" to despair. It is no mere fancy
to read in the paragraph of The Examiner the death
warrant of Harriet Shelley.

Nearly five years before this period Shelley had

304 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

been publicly proclaimed in Dublin not only " a very
striking and original thinker/' but A POET. At about
the same date, and in the same city, it would appear
from the following statement that another fact was
discovered, more interesting to Shelley's personal
friends than to himself. The amiable weakness of
the poet in leaving not only his purse but his credit
to the discretion, or indiscretion, of his associates was
first exhibited in Dublin. The curious fact transpired
about thirty years ago in a correspondence which the
present writer had with the editor of The Dublin
Evening Post on the poetical genius of Shelley.
Eoused by a slighting allusion to a poet, whom I may
say I had discovered for myself about eleven years
previously, which had appeared in that paper, I wrote
several letters in defence of Shelley, which may be
found in The Dublin Evening Post, Nov. 24th, 1842,
Dec. 6th, 1842, and Dec. 8th, 1842. I had made
reference to Shelley's visit to Dublin in 1812, and to
this the editor, after some courteous allusions to the
enthusiasm of my letters, the authorship of which he
was not aware of, thus alludes : —

"As to the rest, we need say nothing. Politics
with Shelley was a sentiment, and we honour him for
the clothing it assumed. We knew him a little at
the time mentioned. And we know also that he was
made the pecuniary dupe of a person not less sincere
in his politics, but in money matters less honest. "-
The Dublin Evening Post, Thursday Evening, Nov. 17th,
1842.

The editor of The Dublin Evening Post in 1842
had been the editor of The Weekly Messenger in 1812.
Frederick William Conway and John Lawless had
life-long differences, which commenced about the

CURIOUS STATEMENT ABOUT SHELLEY. 305

latter period, and ended only with the death of Mr.
Lawless in 1837. There can be little doubt that Lawless
was the writer of the article on Shelley so frequently
alluded to. In Shelley's hitherto unpublished letters,
from which so many interesting extracts have been
taken, there is no mention of Conway, while Lawless
is spoken of frequently in terms of affection. Conway,
as editor of the paper, must have known something,
though perhaps inaccurately, of the efforts made by
Shelley, as proved by the letter to Mr. Medwin, to
assist Lawless in bringing out his History of Ireland.
Captain Medwin, with his usual incompleteness and
often inaccuracy of detail, does not inform us whether
Shelley's instructions to Mr. Medwin, senior, to raise
the sum of 250^. for the completion of this work were
or were not carried out. From a circumstance in
connexion with the affair at Lymouth in the August
of the same year, and from the fact that it was to the
house of Mr. John Lawless Shelley and Harriet fled,
as it were, in March, 1813, after the extraordinary
affair at Tanyrallt, there is a strong probability that ths
money, or some portion of it, was advanced to Mr.
Lawless. Knowing what we now know of similar and
less excusable transactions — the iooo/. given in a lump
to Leigh Hunt — the rather doubtful 500^. to Mr.
Madocks for the breakwater at Tremadoc — the lool.
a year to Mr. Peacock — the bills accepted at the
dagger's point for Mr. Godwin — the proceeds of carted
furniture for Mr. Skimpole, and many other acts of
unreflecting and extorted generosity, this contribution
to the History of Ireland by Mr. Lawless, which
Shelley was sure would be repaid " at the expiration
of eighteen months/' looks in comparison more like a
clever speculation, a safe investment of the poet, than

x

306 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

a deliberate intention to defraud on the part of the
historian. Mr. Lawless died in 1837, and was there-
fore unable to return the fire of his old antagonist.
His explanation of all the circumstances of his acquain-
tance with Shelley would have been most interesting.
There can be no chance of such explanation now. He
would probably have demurred to the right of his
assailant to sit in judgment on his private intercourse
with Mr. Shelley until the censor had explained his
own secret correspondence with Lord Sidmouth. In
any case Mr. Lawless would have read " with a wild
surmise" the following letter, the original of which is
to be found in the Record Office : —

STATE PAPERS, " Ireland, 1812. August — December.
No. 657."

" Dublin, November 27th, 1812.

" MY LORD, — I have the honour of enclosing the
e Address' which will be published to-morrow by the
Catholic Bishops. I think the Document important,
as although your Lordship may have received a
Manuscript Copy previously, yet lest that should not
prove to be the case I have ventured to trouble you
with the only copy that has yet left the Printer's
possession.

" I shall have the honour of resuming my corre-
spondence to-morrow with Mr. Beckett.

" I have the honour to be, my Lord,

" Your Lordship's most obedient and
" most faithful Servant,

« F. W. CONWAY."

" Right Hon. Lord Sidmouth."

The document referred to in the foregoing letter is

MR. CON WAY, LOUD SIDMOUTH, AND MR. BECKETT. 307

also preserved in the Record Office. It is a small
pamphlet, the title of which is as follows : —

"The Address of the Roman Catholic Prelates, assem-
bled in Dublin on the i8th of November, 1812. To
the Clergy and Laity of the Roman Catholic Church in
Ireland. Published by Authority. Dublin. Printed and
Published by H. Fitzpatrick, Capel Street."

By another memorandum in a separate letter it
appears that the opinion of the Attorney General and
Solicitor General was taken as to the legality of the
publication in question. It was also under the con-
sideration of the Chancellor. The paper containing
these facts is not signed. It contains the following
observations : — " The course of proceedings with re-
gard to these publications appears to be a matter of
much public importance and of some delicacy."

Leaving Mr. Conway to resume his secret corre-
spondence with Lord Sidmouth and Mr. Beckett, we
return with a sense of relief to our more immediate
subject.

On the 1 8th of March, 1812, Shelley wrote to
Godwin as follows : —

" MY DEAR SIR, — I have said that I acquiesce in
your decision, nor has my conduct militated with the
assertion. I have withdrawn from circulation the
publications in which I erred, and am preparing to
quit Dublin."

Two days after this open recantation we find Shelley
negotiating for a loan of two hundred and fifty pounds
for the completion of a History of Ireland. That pro-
ject he kept a profound secret from his vigilant
director. The Declaration of Rights, a broadside

3o8 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

which Shelley had printed in Dublin for the purpose
of being " posted on the farmers' walls/' and which
was the last of his political experiments, he seems not
to have had the courage to send to Godwin. It was,
however, forwarded to his friend at Hurstpierpoint,
and to that circumstance we owe its preservation.

On the 1 8th of March, 1812, the day on which
Shelley wrote his last letter from Dublin to Godwin,
" a large deal box" had been filled by him with . all
the copies of his two pamphlets and Declaration of
Rights then remaining in his possession, which was for-
warded by the Holyhead packet, with the address —

"Miss Kitchener, Hurstpierpoint, Sussex."

Shelley could only pay the freight to Holyhead; he
expected the box would have been forwarded to Hurst,
when the additional charges would have been paid.
After remaining some days at Holyhead, no one ap-
pearing to pass the box, the Surveyor of Customs
opened it, as was his duty, in order to ascertain if it
contained any excisable articles, the ports of England
and Ireland being then watched for this purpose with
greater vigilance than are those of France and Eng-
land at the present day. The discovery of a case of
Orsini shells, had such instruments been then invented,
could scarcely have created a greater amount of con-
sternation among all the officials of the quiet little
harbour of Holyhead than did the contents of the box.
The discovery was first made by Pierce Thomas, the
Surveyor of Customs. He at once communicated the
fact to William D. Fellowes, who, in the Almanac for
1811 and 1813, under the heading of the General
Post Office, is described as " agent for the Packet
Boats" at Holyhead. This will account for the narrative

THE PA MPHLETS SEIZED A T HOL THE A D. 309

of the seizure having been forwarded both to the
Secretary of the Post Office and to the Secretary of
State. The letters and documents sent to Mr. — after-
wards Sir — Francis Freeling remained in his private
possession for many years, and appear to have been
sold after his death. In 1870 they were advertised in
the catalogue of a London bookseller, and were for-
tunately bought by the Right Hon. Chichester For-
tescue, M.P., President of the Board of Trade, who
in the kindest manner confided them to my hands
for the purpose of transcription and incorporation into
this work. The letter of Pierce Thomas, the Surveyor
of Customs, was not sent to the head of his own de-
partment, but to the Right Hon. Richard Ryder,
Secretary of State. In this way it has been preserved
in the Record Office, where it rewarded my search in
December, 1870. I am not aware that any allusion
has ever been made to it or to the exceedingly inte-
resting letter of Harriet Shelley, a copy of which it
contains. There is with this communication a copy of
the Declaration of Rights. Another copy is also in the
Record Office in connexion with the affair at Barnstaple
in the following year. The third and only remaining
copy now known to be in existence is in the collection
already alluded to, purchased by the Right Hon.
Chichester Fortescue, M. P., which also contains a copy
of the Proposals for an Association (Shelley's second
Irish pamphlet), as well as the autograph letters of
Mr. Fellowes and Lord Chichester. This collection is
properly inscribed by one of its possessors, certainly
not by Sir Francis Freeling, " Percy Bysshe Shelley,"
" Inflammatory Irish Papers/' &c. &c. — a phrase bor-
rowed from the letter of poor Harriet.

Although the letter of Pierce Thomas in the Record

3 1 o PERCY B YSSHE SHELLEY.

Office is dated a day earlier, it will perhaps be more
satisfactory to give the documents forwarded to the
Postmaster General, Lord Chichester, as well as his
own contribution to the materials which he uncon-
sciously contributed to the biography of Percy Bysshe
Shelley. All the letters are given as they were written,
no correction of names or spelling being made.

Letter of William D. Fellowes, Esq., Post Office Agent
at Holy head, to Francis Freeling, Esq., Secretary
of the General Post Office, London.
"Most Private." "Holyhead, March 3ist, 1812.

" MY DEAR SIR, — The Surveyor of the Customs
consulted me yesterday on having discovered in the
Custom House, a few days since, a Large deal box,
directed to ' Miss Kitchener, Hurst per pier, Brighton,
Sussex, England/ which had been landed from one
of the Packets from Ireland. It contained, besides a
great quantity of Pamphlets and printed papers, an
open letter, of a tendency so dangerous to Govern-
ment, that I urged him to write without further loss
of time, a confidential letter, either to the Secretary
of State, or to Mr. Percival, and enclose the letter,
and one of each of the Pamphlets and printed Decla-
rations (as they are styled), which he accordingly did
by yesterday's Post, to Mr. Percival.

"As the Letter in question, which the Surveyor
gave me to read contained a paragraph injurious to
the revenue of the P. Office, I think it my duty
to make you acquainted with it — it is as follows : —

" 'Percy has sent you a box full of inflammatory*
matter, therefore I think I may send this/

* The word is " inflammable" in Mr. Pierce Thomas's tran-
script of Harriet's letter.

CORRESPONDENCE WITH THE POST OFFICE. 311

" 'I sent you two letters in nevis Papers, which I
hope you received safe from the Intrusion of Post
Masters. I sent a Pamphlet to my Father some time
since in the same way/

" 'Disperse the Declarations, Percy says the Farmers
are fond of having them stuck on their walls.3

" Mr. Thomas, the gentleman who gave me this
information, having acted by my advice, in order to
avoid the delay of reporting to the Custom House,
and the possibility of its being considered as a common
seizure, of which there are a great many every year —
has requested that I would not mention it — and I
therefore request you to consider this as confidential.
I will send you a Pamphlet in the course of a day or
two, but I trust in the mean time this communication
may enable the office to detect any future corre-
spondence between the parties under the cover of a
news Paper.

" I have the honour to remain,
" Dear Sir,

" Your faithful humble servant,

"WILLIAM D. FELLOWES.
" Francis Freeling, Esq."

"It is a very common custom with the people in
Ireland to write in news Papers. I open all that come
through my hands, and have charged many from
being written in.

" The Person whose letter I have quoted from
appears to be English, and to have lately gone to
Ireland. I have no doubt but an extensive corre-
spondence will be attempted in the way mentioned.
There is no signature to the letter or address. "

This letter is endorsed by Sir Francis Freeling in

3i2 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

his well-known autograph, of which there are nume-
rous specimens among the State Papers. " 31 March,
1812, Holyhead, W. D. Fellowes, Esq. Most Private."
" No. I " is added in another hand.

The next document in this collection of " Inflam-
matory Irish Papers " is a short note of Mr. Fellowes,
which explains itself: —

W. D. Fellowes, Esq., to Francis Freeling, Esq.

"April ist, 1812.

" MY DEAR SIR, — I send you the Pamphlet, and
Declaration of Rights, which I mentioned in my letter
of yesterday, and remain yours faithfully,

" WILLIAM D. FELLOWES."
Endorsed by Mr. Freeling : —
"April ist, 1812, Holyhead, W. D. Fellowes, Esq. (2.)"

These letters of Mr. Fellowes, the copy of Shelley's
second pamphlet and of the Declaration of Rights,
were duly forwarded by Mr. Francis Freeling, the
Secretary of the Post Office, to his chief, the Earl of
Chichester, one of the Postmasters General. His
Lordship, though ex officio a man of letters, was a
little defective in his orthography, but I have thought
it better to give the letter precisely as it is, than to
attempt any corrections. The opinions formed upon
the social position of Shelley's wife by the magnates
of Sussex are very curious, as is also the sketch of the
antecedents of Miss Kitchener. Altogether the letter
is full of interest.

The Earl of Chichester, Postmaster General, to Francis
Freeling, Esq., Secretary to the General Post Office.

"Stanmer, April jth, 1812.
" DEAR FREELING,— I return the Pamphlet and De-

LETTER OF THE EARL OF CHICHESTER. 313

claration, the writer of the first is son of Mr. Shelley,
member for the Rape of Bramber, and is by all accounts
a most extraordinary man. I hear that he has married
a Servant, or some person of very low birth ; he has
been in Ireland some time, and I heard of his speak-
ing at the Catholic Convention.

" Miss Hichener, of Hurstperpoint, keeps a school
there, and is well spoken of: her Father keeps a
Publick House in the neighbourhood, he was origi-
nally a smugler,"* and changed his name from Yorke to
Tichener [Kitchener], before he took the publick House.

'•' I shall have a watch upon the Daughter, and dis-
cover whether there is any connexion between her and
Shelley.

" I shall come to Town on Wednesday.

" As I am to see Mr. Scott to-morrow, I shall keep
the Brighton Papers until 1 I have seen him.

" Yours most sincerely,

" CHICHESTER.

" I send my Receipt enclosed ; you will be so good
as to pay the salary to Messrs. Hoare's."

This letter is endorsed by Mr. Freeling: — " 5th April,
1812. Stanmer. Earl of Chichester. 'Inflammatory
Irish Papers addressed to Hurst Perpoint, seized at Holy-
head.' " Mr. Freeling's private address, " Rotting-
dean," &c., is added.

The Earl of Chichester, by whom the foregoing letter
was written, was joint Postmaster General with the
Earl of Sandwich. The letter is dated from Stanmer
Parky Sussex. This will account for Lord Chichester
knowing something, though incorrectly, of the private

* So written.

3 f 4 PERC Y B YSSHE SHELLEY.

affairs of the Shelleys. Why he mistook the place for
which Mr. Timothy Shelley was Member of Parlia-
ment, was strange. Mr. Shelley, I believe, never sat
for any place but Shoreham. William Wilberforce,
who had been member for Yorkshire in 1 8 1 1, was mem-
ber for Bramber in 1813, having probably been elected
for the latter place at the general election of 1813.

11 The Brighton Papers" mentioned by Lord Chi-
chester, probably had no reference to Shelley's affair.
It should be remembered, however, that in Shelley's
unpublished letter to Miss Hitchener (March loth,
1812), from which I have given a few extracts, he was
most anxious that the " Sussex papers" should report his
proceedings in Dublin. " Send me the Sussex papers/'
he says. " Insert, or make them insert the account
of me :" evidently referring to the account of " Pierce
Byshe Shelly, Esq.," which had appeared three days be-
fore in The Weekly Messenger of March 7th, 1810.

The following letters in the Record Office, which
have hitherto been unknown, refer to the same seizure
at Holyhead as described in the foregoing papers.
They are, I think, of greater interest than those already
given.

Documents in the State Paper Office, referring to Shelley,
not previously published.

"IRELAND. January to April, 1812. No. 655."

Letter of the Surveyor of Customs at Holyhead to the
Secretary of State for the Home Department.

" Confidential." " Holyhead, March 3Oth, 1812.

" SIR, — The important contents of the enclosed
letter, with a Pamphlet and a. Declaration of rights

LETTERS IN STATE PAPER OFFICE ON THE SEIZURE. 315

(forming part of the contents of a box detained by
me), which I feel it my duty to transmit to you,, will,
I trust, be a sufficient apology for addressing myself
to you in the first instance. Holding as I do an
official situation under the Board of Customs, it would
perhaps have been more strictly regular to have first
communicated them to my own Board, and if the not
having done it should appear to you to be informal, I
must trust to your candour in not implicating me for
my zealous intentions. Some days since a large deal
box, directed to Miss Hitchener, Hurstpierpoint,
Brighton, England, was landed from on board one of
the Holyhead Packets, and brought to the Custom
House, where, as Surveyor and Searcher of the Cus-
toms, I opened it, and found the enclosed open letter
— ^the tendency of which at this moment I need not
point out ; and it still remains in my custody. If it
should be your desire to have them transmitted to
London, and withheld from the person to whom they
are addressed, I should be glad to be honoured with
your confidential opinion and commands in what way
I ought to forward it, consistent with my public duty
as an officer of the Customs, and the respect due to
my Board.

" I have the honour to be,

" Your very obedient servant,

"PIERCE THOMAS."
" Private.

" The Eight Honble. E. Eyder, Secretary."

The communication forwarded by Mr. Pierce
Thomas to the Secretary of State was a copy of the
" open letter" found in the box containing so much
" inflammable matter" in the shape of pamphlets and
Declarations of Rights. This letter, which was written

3 1 6 PERCY B YSSHE SHELLEY.

by Harriet Shelley, seems to have been considered
by the officials at Holyhead as a far more dangerous
document than the printed Address to the Irish People,
and the other papers that accompanied it. This per-
haps arose from the fact that the letter was not signed
by the writer, and that the person to whom it was
written was addressed under the disguise of a classical
n&me. By the " Portia" of poor Harriet's letter was
of course meant Portia, the daughter of Cato and the
wife of Brutus. This famous name was given to Miss
Kitchener by " Percy's little circle" (to borrow a
phrase from one of Shelley's unpublished letters), not
only in compliment to the republicanism of their cor-
respondent at Hurstpierpoint, but to escape a diffi-
culty which arose from Miss Kitchener's Christian
name being the same as Miss Westbrook's — they were
both Elizas. In Shelley's hitherto unpublished letter
from Whitehaven, Feb. 3rd, 1812, written on his way
to Dublin, from which we have quoted largely in an
earlier portion of this book, he alludes to this incon-
venience. At that time he was urging Miss Kitchener
at any risk to join him in Dublin — " resign your
school, all, everything for us and the Irish cause/' He
concludes his letter of February 3rd, 1812, in these
words, which I have reserved in order to explain the
circumstance of Harriet addressing Miss Kitchener by
an adopted name. Shelley says —

" Pray what are you to be called when you come to
us, for Eliza's name is Eliza, and Miss Kitchener is
too long, too broad, and too deep ? Adieu,

" Your

" P. B. SHELLEY."

MISS HITCHENER ADDRESSED AS "PORTIA." 517

To prevent this clashing of Eliza Westbrook and
Eliza Kitchener, the heroic name of Porcia was
adopted for the latter. Had Shelley known as much
of his fair and philosophical friend at Hurstpierpoint as
did the Earl of Chichester, perhaps her real name of
" Yorke" would not have been found " too long/'
"too broad/' or "too deep" either for friendly intercourse
or correspondence. It would, however, have wanted
the delicious romance of suggesting a certain resem-
blance in principle at least between the heroine of
Hurst and the wife of Brutus. By that name, though
slightly misspelt by the good and gentle Harriet, she was
addressed in the following most interesting letter : —

RECORD OFFICE. " Ireland. January to April, 1812.
No. 655."

Harriet Shelley to Eliza Hitchener.

"Dublin, March i8th [1812.]

" MY DEAR PORTIA, — As Percy has sent you such a
large Box so full of inflammable matter, I think I may
be allowed to send a little but not [of] such a nature
as his. I sent you two letters in a newspaper, which
I hope you received safe from the intrusion of Post
masters. I sent one of the Pamphlets to my Father
in a newspaper, which was opened and charged, but
which was very trifling when compared to what you
and Godwin paid.

" I believe I have mentioned a new acquaintance
of ours, a Mrs. Nugent, who is sitting in the room
now and talking to Percy about Virtue. You see how
little I stand upon ceremony. I have seen her but
twice before, and I find her a very greeable, sensible
woman. She has felt most severely the miseries of

3IS PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

her country in which she has been a very active mem-
ber. She visited all the Prisons in the time of the
Rebellion to exhort the people to have courage and hope.
She says it was a most dreadful task; but it was her
duty, and she would not shrink from the performance
of it. This excellent woman, with all her notions of
Philanthropy and justice, is obliged to work for her
subsistence — to work in a shop which is a furrier's ;
there she is every day confined to her needle. Is it
not a thousand pities that such a woman should be so
dependent upon others ? She has visited us this
evening for about three hours, and is now returned
home. The evening is the only time she can get out
in the week ; but Sunday is her owrn, and then we are
to see her. She told Percy that her country was her
only love, when he asked her if she was married. She
called herself Mrs. I suppose on account of her age,
as she looks rather old for a Miss. She has never been
out of her own country, and has no wish to leave it.

" This is St. Patrick's night,"* and the Irish always
get very tipsy on such a night as this. The Horse
Guards are pacing the streets and will be so all the
night, so fearful are they of disturbances, the poor
people being very much that way inclined, as Provi-
sions are very scarce in the southern counties. Poor
Irish People, how much I feel for them. Do you
know, such is their ignorance that when there is a
drawing-room held they go from some distance to see
the people who keep them starving to get their

* This shows that Harriet's letter was written on the i7th of
March, and not on the " i8th," as she has dated it. Unless,
indeed, the usual St. Patrick's Ball at the Castle of Dublin was for
some reason held on the i8th of March instead of the I7th in the
year 1812.

ST. PATRICK'S NIGHT DESCRIBED BY HARRIET. 319

luxuries ; they will crowd round the state carriages in
great glee to see those within who have stripped them
of their rights, and who wantonly revel in a profusion
of ill-gotten luxury whilst so many of those harmless
people are wanting Bread for their wives and children.
What a spectacle ! People talk of the fiery spirit of
these distressed creatures, hut that spirit is very much
broken and ground down hy the oppressors of this
poor country. I may with truth say there are more
Beggars in this city than any other in the world.
They are so poor they have hardly a rag to cover
their naked limbs, and such is their passion for drink
that when you relieve them one day you see them in
the same deplorable situation the next. Poor crea-
tures, they live more on whiskey than anything, for
meat is so dear they cannot afford to purchase any.
If they had the means I do not know that they would,
whiskey being so much cheaper and to their palates
so much more desirable. Yet how often do we hear
people say that Poverty is no evil. I think if they
had experienced it they would soon alter their tone.
To my idea it is the worst of all evils, as the miseries
that flow from it are certainly very great ; the many
crimes we hear of daily are the consequences of
Poverty, and that, to a very great degree; I think, the
Laws are extremely unjust— they condemn a Person
to Death for stealing 13 shillings and 4 pence.

" Disperse the Declarations. Percy says the farmers
are very fond of having something posted upon their
walls.

" Percy has sent you all his Pamphlets with the
Declaration of Rights, which you will disperse to
advantage. He has not many of his first Address,
having taken great pains to circulate them through
this city.

3 20 PERCY B YSSHE SHELLEY.

" All thoughts of an Association are given up as
impracticable. We shall leave this noisy town on
the 7th of April, unless the Habeas Corpus Act should
be suspended, and then we shall be obliged to leave
here as soon as possible. Adieu."

Note on the "Declaration of Rights."

On this interesting subject it may be useful to supplement
what has been already said by a fact of some importance.

Of the original broadside containing the Declaration of Rights
there are probably but four copies in existence. Three of these I
have seen. Two of them are in the Record Office, one in the
papers connected with the seizure at Holyhead in 1812, the other
with those describing the affair at Barnstaple in 1813. The
papers are marked respectively, " Ireland, January to April, 1812.
No. 655." " Domestic. George III. Nos. 239, 240." A third
copy, in the possession of the Right Hon. Chichester Fortescue, M.P.,
also formed a part of the seizure at Holyhead. It was sent to
Mr. Freeling, the Secretary of the Post Office, and remained in
his hands. Mention is made of a fourth copy in Lowndes' Bib-
liographical Manual, Bonn's ed. p. 23/4, as follows: — " Queen
jfrlab, by Percy Bysshe Shelley. Privately printed without a title
page, with a hand-bill, called Declaration of Rights, drawn up
by Shelley and distributed in Ireland." What has become of this
interesting volume is unknown. It is extremely probable that
Clark's and Carlile's editions of Queen Mob, 1821, 1822, were
printed from this copy. It is a singular fact, not previously
known, that during the life-time of Shelley the Declaration of
Rights was reprinted by the same Carlile, apparently without his
knowing who was the writer. It will be found in the fifth number
of The Republican, London, Friday, Sept. 24th, 1819. R. Carlile,
Printer, 55, Fleet Street, London, p. 7^. I am indebted to Mr.
John Wilson, Great Russell Street, for a copy of this interesting
number of The Republican.

CHAPTER XII.

TT would appear from an endorsement in the hand-
writing of Mr. Wellesley Pole, that the copy of
Harriet's letter given in the last chapter, with the
communication of Mr. Pierce Thomas, were forwarded
from the Home Secretary's office in London to the
office of the Secretary for Ireland in Dublin. " Mr.
Goulburn" is also written on one of them, he being
the joint under-secretary with Mr. Beckett. All the
documents, on which no action seems to have been
taken, were sent back to London in an envelope,
which still retains the seal with the motto " Toilet
virtus" The only observation made by Mr. Wellesley
Pole is as follows : —

"The enclosed are returned with Mr. Pole's com-
pliments.

"Irish Office, April 8th, 1812."

The chief interest of poor Harriet's letter lies in
the additional evidence which it gives of her intelli-
gence, good nature, and innocence. Other matters,
however, are decided by it. The abandonment of the
Association seems in no way to have been affected by
the remonstrances of Godwin. The project was given
up because it was found to be " impracticable." The
letters of Godwin did not accelerate the departure of
Shelley from Dublin by one day. He left that city
at the precise time he had originally arranged to leave

322 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

it. The police had nothing to do with his movements.
He received no intimation from them that he should
" quit the country/* The laconic observation of Mr.
Wellesley Pole as to the wonderful mare's-nest dis-
covered by Mr. Pierce Thomas at Holyhead, shows
the profound indifference of the Irish Government to
his proceedings. What became of the large box of
pamphlets is uncertain. It was probably forwarded
to Miss Kitchener, who doubtless brought it with her
when she joined "Percy's little circle/' either in
Wales or Devonshire a few months later. At Ly-
mouth, in August, 1812, according to the letter of
the town clerk of Barnstaple, " Mr. Shelley had with
him large chests, which were so heavy that scarcely
three men could lift them, which were supposed to
contain papers/' These " papers" must have been
some copies of the Address to the Irish People, a larger
supply of the Proposals for an Association, possibly
the whole impression of the Declaration of Rights, also
of the poem called The Devil's Walk, which like the
former was printed as a broadside, but on larger paper.
Those "large chests/' too, may have contained the
Poetical Essay on the Existing State of Things, the
Verses on Robert Emmett, and all the other materials
for the edition of his poems which Shelley had pro-
jected bringing out in Dublin.

As the Declaration of Rights was printed in Dublin,
and as it formed part of the seizure made at Holy-
head, it may appropriately be introduced here as the
concluding exploit of Shelley's wonderful expedition to
Ireland in 1813. It has been recently printed by
Mr. Rossetti* from a transcript made in the Record

* In The Fortnightly Review for January, 1871. But see note
to last chapter, page 320.

"DECLARATION" AN ABRIDGMENT OF "PROPOSALS." 323

Office, not from the Holyhead documents, but from
those connected with the Lymouth and Barnstaple
affair of August, 1812, which are also preserved among
the State Papers. These will be subsequently referred
to, and some corrections and additional information
supplied. The transcript from which Mr. Rossetti
has printed the Declaration of Eights was made by a
foreigner, which will account for some of the mistakes
which have crept into the published version. There
is also an attempt here and there to correct the
grammar of the original : occasionally a word is
omitted, capital letters and italics, not used by Shelley,
are introduced capriciously. Altogether the reprint is
unsatisfactory : the Declaration of Rights is here repro-
duced faithfully without any wilful deviation from the
original. Mr. Rossetti has drawn attention to certain
resemblances between Shelley's Declaration of Rights
and " the two most famous of similar documents in
the history of the great French Revolution — the one
adopted by the Constituent Assembly in August, 1789,
and the other proposed in April, 1793, by Robespierre."
For this ingenious parallel, the reader is referred to the
pages of the Review in which it appeared. It is, how-
ever, probable that Shelley manufactured his Declara-
tion of Rights out of materials nearer to his hand. It
is a mere condensation or abridgment of what he had
already printed at greater length in his second pam-
phlet, the Proposals for an Association. " The open-
ing thunder-clap " of the Declaration, as Mr. Rossetti
calls it, is given almost in the same words as in the
Proposals.

" Government has no rights ; it is a delegation
from several individuals for the purpose of securing
their own," says the Declaration.

Y 2

3H PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

" Government can have no rights ; it is a delegation
for the purpose of securing them to others/ ' says the
pamphlet.

Most of the other apothegms of the Declaration of
Rights may be found in the Proposals for an Associa-
tion, the inspiration of both being doubtless the famous
historical documents referred to by Mr. Rossetti.

DECLARATION OF RIGHTS,
i.

GOVERNMENT has no rights ; it is a delegation from
several individuals for the purpose of securing their
own. It is therefore just, only so far as it exists by
their consent, useful only so far as it operates to their
well-being.

2.

If these individuals think that the form of govern-
ment which they or their forefathers constituted is ill
adapted to produce their happiness, they have a right
to change it.

3-

Government is devised for the security of Rights.
The rights of man are liberty,, and an equal participa-
tion of the commonage of Nature.

4-

As the benefit of the governed is, or ought to be,
the origin of government, no men can have any autho-
rity that does not expressly emanate from their will.

5-

Though all governments are not so bad as that of
Turkey, yet none are so good as they might be. The

DECLARATION OF RIGHTS. 325

majority of every country have a right to perfect their
government. The minority should not disturb them ;
they ought to secede, and form their own system in
their own way.

6.

All have a right to an equal share in the benefits
and burdens of Government. Any disabilities for
opinion imply, by their existence, barefaced tyranny on
the side of Government, ignorant slavishness on the
side of the governed.

7-

The rights of man, in the present state of society,
are only to be secured by some degree of coercion to
be exercised on their violator. The sufferer has a
right that the degree of coercion employed be as slight
as possible.

8.

It may be considered as a plain proof of the hollow-
ness of any proposition if power be used to enforce
instead of reason to persuade its admission. Govern-
ment is never supported by fraud until it cannot be
supported by reason.

9-

No man has a right to disturb the public peace by
personally resisting the execution of a law, however
bad. He ought to acquiesce, using at the same time
the utmost powers of his reason to promote its
repeal.

10.

A man must have a right to act in a certain
manner, before it can be his duty. He may, before
he ought.

326 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY^

II.

A man has a right to think as his reason directs ;
it is a duty he owes to himself to think with freedom,
that he may act from conviction.

12.

A man has a right to unrestricted liberty of dis-
cussion. Falsehood is a scorpion that will sting itself
to death.

*3-

A man has not only a right to express his thoughts,
but it is his duty to do so.

14.

No law has a right to discourage the practice of
truth. A man ought to speak the truth on every
occasion. A duty can never be criminal; what is not
criminal cannot be injurious.

Law cannot make what is in its nature virtuous or
innocent to be criminal, any more than it can make
what is criminal to be innocent. Government cannot
make a law ; it can only pronounce that which was
the law before its organisation ; viz., the moral result
of the imperishable relations of things.

16.

The present generation cannot bind their posterity :
the few cannot promise for the many.

17-

No man has a right to do an evil thing that good
may come,

DECLARA TION OF RIGHTS. 327

18.

Expediency is inadmissible in morals. Politics are
only sound when conducted on principles of morality :
they are, in fact, the morals of nations.

19.

Man has no right to kill his brother. It is no
excuse that he does so in uniform : he only adds the
infamy of servitude to the crime of murder.

20.

Man, whatever be his country, has the same rights
in one place as another — the rights of universal
citizenship.

21.

The government of a country ought to be perfectly
indifferent to every opinion. Religious differences,
the bloodiest and most rancorous of all, spring from
partiality.

22.

A delegation of individuals, for the purpose of
securing their rights, can have no undelegated power
of restraining the expression of their opinion.

23-

Belief is involuntary ; nothing involuntary is meri-
torious or reprehensible. A man ought not to be
considered worse or better for his belief.

24.

A Christian, a Deist, a Turk, and a Jew, have
equal rights : they are men and brethren.

3 28 PEROT BTSSHE SHELLEY.

If a persons religious ideas correspond not with
your own, love him nevertheless. How different
would yours have been had the chance of birth placed
you in Tartary or India !

26.

Those who believe that Heaven is, what earth has
been, a monopoly in the hands of a favoured few,
would do well to reconsider their opinion; if they
find that it came from their priest or their grand-
mother, they could not do better than reject it.

27.

No man has a right to be respected for any other
possesssions but those of virtue and talents. Titles -are
tinsel, power a corruptor, glory a bubble, and exces-
sive wealth a libel on its possessor.

28.

No man has a right to monopolise more than he can
enjoy ; what the rich give to the poor, whilst millions
are starving, is not a perfect favour, but an imperfect
right.

29.

Every man has a right to a certain degree of
leisure and liberty, because it is his duty to attain
a certain degree of knowledge. He may before he
ought.

3°-

Sobriety of body and mind is necessary to those
who would be free ; because, without sobriety, a high
sense of philanthropy cannot actuate the heart, nor
cool and determined courage execute its dictates.

DECLARATION OF RIGHTS. 329

3T-

The only use of government is to repress the vices
of man. If man were to-day sinless, to-morrow he
would have a right to demand that government and
all its evils should cease.

Man ! thou whose rights are here declared, be no
longer forgetful of the loftiness of thy destination.
Think of thy rights, of those possessions which will
give thee virtue and wisdom, hy which thou mayest
arrive at happiness and freedom. They are declared
to thee by one who knows thy dignity, for every hour
does his heart swell with honorable pride in the con-
templation of what thou mayest attain — by one who is
not forgetful of thy degeneracy, for every moment
brings home to him the bitter conviction of what
thou art.

Awake ! — arise I — or be for ever fallen.

Mr. Hogg says, in complete ignorance of what he
was writing about, "The Irish dream which com-
menced so abruptly being brought as abruptly to an
end, the youthful dreamer awoke; then suddenly
vanished, and reappeared in Wales" (vol. ii. p. 1 18). "We
have proved the reverse of all these statements. The
Irish dream did not commence " abruptly /' it was
not brought to an end ' ' abruptly/' and if the youthful
dreamer awoke, he did not " suddenly" vanish. Every
step that Shelley took in his Irish dream had been
taken with his eyes open. The time of his coming,
the time of his leaving, had all been pre-arranged,
while the period devoted to his preparation for the
enterprise and its accomplishment exceeded in length
the whole time of his then intercourse with Mr.

330 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

Hogg. But that gentleman makes one statement
which cannot be controverted, Shelley "reappeared
in Wales/' It was not, however, to Mr. Hogg that
he announced his resurrection ; it was to his philo-
sophical friends Miss Kitchener and Mr. Godwin.
The following unpublished letter to the former, though
undated, appears to have been the first he wrote after
leaving Dublin on the ;th of April, 1812 : —

Shelley to Miss Hitchener.

" Nantgwilt, Khayader, Radnorshire.

" We left Dublin and arrived at Holyhead

after a passage of unusual length You have ere

this received our box and its contents. I paid the car-
riage as far as I could, that is, across the Channel, and
I am positive that it did not come by the post. The
Declaration of Rights would be useful in farmhouses. It
was by a similar expedient that Franklin promulgated
his commercial opinions among the Americans. Your
letter enjoined us to leave Dublin ; we received it a
short time before we had settled to depart. The
Habeas Corpus Act has not been suspended ; nor
probably will they do it. We left Dublin because I
had done all that I could do. If its effects were
beneficial, they were not greatly so. I am dissatisfied
with my success, but not with the attempt. Although
the expense of our journey was considerable, I ever
bear in my mind that l economy is the best generosity/

I have written some verses on Robert Emmett,

which you shall see, and which I will insert in my
book of poems. We are now embosomed in the soli-
tude of mountains, woods, and rivers, silent, solitary,
and old, far away from any town, six miles from
Rhayader, which is nearest. A ghost haunts this

DESCRIPTION OF NANTQWILT. 331

house, which has frequently been seen by the servants.
We have several witches in our neighbourhood, and
are quite stocked with fairies and hobgoblins of every
description. Well, my dearest friend, I have no larger
paper, and therefore must say adieu. Recollect that
I am still your friend completely and unalterably.
Harriet and Eliza send their love; Harriet is now
writing to Mrs. Nugent, an excellent woman whom
we discovered in Dublin, and of whom she will tell
you. Adieu !

" Yours eternally,

« P. B. SHELLEY."

Shelley was not at this time aware of the fate which
had befallen his box at Holyhead, and that Harriet's
descriptive letter of Mrs. Nugent had been under the
inspection of the Secretary of State for the Home De-
partment in England, and the Irish Secretary in
Dublin. I have endeavoured to ascertain something
about this Mrs. Nugent, but without success. It is
pleasant to find that both Shelley and Harriet retained
a kindly feeling towards this benevolent woman after
they had left Ireland.

The first published letter of Shelley from Nantg wilt
is dated April 25th, 1812, eighteen days after he left
Dublin. It is to Godwin, and seems to have been
written after the preceding. This letter contains a
reference to his Dublin experience, which, as faithful
chroniclers of this period of his history, we cannot
omit : —

" We are no longer in Dublin. Never did I behold
in any other spot a contrast so striking as that which
grandeur and misery form in that unfortunate country,
How forcibly do I feel the remark which you put into

332 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

the mouth of Fleetwood, that the distress which in the
country humanizes the heart by its infrequency, is
calculated in a city, by the multiplicity of its demands
for relief, to render us callous to the contemplation of
wretchedness ! Surely the inequality of rank is not
felt so oppressively in England! Surely something
might be devised for Ireland, even consistent
with the present state of politics, to ameliorate
its condition ! Curran at length called on me. I
dined twice at his house. Curran is certainly a man
of great abilities, but it appears to me that he under-
values his powers when he applies them to what is
usually the subject of his conversation. I may not
possess sufficient taste to relish humour, or his inces-
sant comicality may weary that which I possess. He
does not possess that mould of mind which I have
been accustomed to contemplate with the highest feel-
ings of respect and love. In short, though Curran
indubitably possesses a strong understanding and a
brilliant fancy, I should not have beheld him with the
feelings of admiration which his first visit excited had
he not been your intimate friend." — Letter to Godwin,
Hogg, vol. ii. pp. 122, 123.

In the poetic organization of Shelley there was one
great want. He had no genuine humour. Anything
he has written in this way never raised a laugh, never
perhaps produced a smile. In this respect he was
unlike some of the great poets whom in their serious
moods he rivalled. The greatest poets, with the ex-
ception of Dante, were as remarkable for their playful
humour as for their sublimity or their pathos. Homer,
Chaucer, Shakspeare, Calderon, Goethe, what would
they have been without the comic element? What
in Byron is likely to last but his humour — the

GODWIN'S ESTIMATE OF CURRAN. 333

humour of his letters as well as of his poems ? Shelley
had nothing of this either in his conversation or in his
writings. All was pervaded by a dignified but rather
grave seriousness. The poor jaded Master of the
Rolls, after a day of exhausting judicial drudgery,
thought perhaps that at his dinner-table he might bid
a momentary adieu to

" Wrangling courts and stubborn law."

There at least he might have hoped to escape for a
brief interval

" The tedious forms, the solemn prate,
The pert dispute, the dull debate" —

and all the other horrors conjured up by the graceful
Muse of Sir William Blackstone. But that would not
suit Shelley. He evidently expected that the expe-
diency of his political pamphlets, and the wisdom of his
Declaration of Rights, would have been the chief topic
of conversation at the table of the Master of the Rolls,
and we dare say he looked even a shade graver while
Curran cracked his jokes, than on the memorable
occasion when he poked a pamphlet into the hood of
an old woman's cloak. Godwin, who knew much more
of Curran than Shelley did, and who was not himself
particularly jocular, thus speaks both of the convivial
as well as forensic talents of John Philpot Curran. The
following appeared two days after the death of Mr.
Curran in The Morniny Chronicle of the i6th of October,
1817:—

" Mr. Curran is almost the last of that brilliant
phalanx, the contemporaries and fellow-labourers of
Mr. Fox, in the cause of general liberty. Lord
Erskine in this country, and Mr. Grattan in Ireland,
still survive.

334 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

" Mr. Curran is one of those characters which the
lover of human nature and its intellectual capacities
delights to contemplate : he rose from nothing ; he
derived no aid from rank and fortune; he ascended
by his own energies to an eminence which throws rank
and fortune into comparative scorn. Mr. Curran was
the great ornament of his time of the Irish bar, and
in forensic eloquence has certainly never been exceeded
in modern times. His rhetoric was the pure emana-
tion of his spirit , a warming and a lighting up of the
soul, that poured conviction and astonishment on his
hearers. It flashed in his eye, and revelled in the
melodious and powerful accents of his voice. His
thoughts almost always shaped themselves into imagery,
and if his eloquence had any fault, it was that his
images were too frequent ; but they were at the same
time so exquisitely beautiful, that he must have been
a rigorous critic that could have determined which of
them to part with. His wit was not less exuberant
than his imagination, and it was the peculiarity of Mr.
Currants wit, that even when it took the form of a
play on words, it acquired dignity from the vein of
imagery that accompanied it. Every jest was a meta-
phor. But the great charm and power of Mr. Currants
eloquence lay in its fervour. It was by this that he
animated his friends and appalled his enemies, and the
admiration which he thus excited was the child and
brother of love

" Mr. Curran had his foibles and his faults ; which
of us has not ? At this awful moment it becomes us
to dwell on his excellences : and as his life has been
illustrious, and will leave a trail of glory behind, this
is the part of him that every man of a pure mind will
choose to contemplate. We may any of us have his

GODWIN INVITED TO WALES. 335

faults — it is his excellences that we could wish, for
the sake of human nature, to excite every man to copy
in his proportion to do so."

Had Mr. Godwin lived to read the attempted bio-
graphy of his illustrious son-in-law, he would scarcely
have found in the immaculate biographer Mr. Hogg
one of those men of ".pure mind " who choose to con-
template the brighter rather than the darker side of
an illustrious man's character.

One other passage may be given from Shelley's
letter to Godwin, April 25th, 1812. Speaking of the
country near Rhayader, he says : —

" The cheapness, beauty, and retirement make this
place in every point of view desirable. Nor can I
view this scenery — mountains and rocks seeming to
form a barrier round this quiet valley, which the tumult
of the world may never overleap ; the guileless habits
of the Welsh — without associating your presence with
the idea, that of your wife, your children, and one
other friend, to complete the picture which my mind
has drawn to itself of felicity. Steal, if possible, my
revered friend, one summer from the cold hurry of
business, and come to Wales. Adieu \" — Hogg, vol. ii.
pp. 123, 124.

Careless readers of Mr. Hogg's book might imagine
that the " one other friend" referred to in this passage
was Mr. Hogg himself. No one who has accompanied
us so far can fall into that mistake ; the " one other
friend" was Miss Kitchener.

The interest which Shelley took in Miss Kitchener
was altogether intellectual and ideal, arising exclu-
sively from the identity of their opinions, and his ad-

336 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

miration of the courage with which she avowed and
maintained her principles. It was no wonder, however,
that a Platonic affection of this kind should be mis-
understood. An unpublished letter of Shelley, dated
"Nantgwilt, April 29th, iSia/" refers to some gossip
on the subject which had been circulating at Cuckfield,
the authorship of which he attributes to Mrs. Pilford,
the wife of his uncle. He was indignant at these
misrepresentations, which he communicated to Miss
Kitchener in the most undisguised manner, and ex-
claimed, in the remarkable passage already quoted : —

" I unfaithful to my Harriet ! You a female
H — g !" [The reader can easily supply the missing
letters written fully in the original.] " Common sense
should laugh such an idea to scorn, if indignation
would wait till it could be looked upon \"

In the same letter he says, as the most convincing
proof of the innocence of his motives : —

" My Harriet's attachment to you will even exceed
mine."

Finally, he entreats his correspondent to disregard
such calumnies. The opinions of others should be in-
different to her. If any doubt arose in her mind as
to these matters, her course was simple : —

" Ask what would Percy's little circle say to this ?"

Mr. Rossetti, epitomizing the supposed facts of
Shelley's life at this period, says : —

" Somewhere about the end of March, the Shelleys
and Eliza left Dublin. They passed through the Isle
of Man; ranged about North and South Wales in
search of a residence ; paused at, and again left a

ABSURD STORY OF CAPTAIN M EDWIN. 337

haunted' house at Nant-Gwilt, near Rhayader;
flitted through Cwm Elan ; and at last, from the ^th
of J uly, settled down for a short while at Lymouth,
in North Devonshire." — Memoir of Shelley, p. Ixii.

A year later, iu the Fortnightly Review, January,
1871, Mr. Rossetti makes the date of Shelley's depar-
ture from Dublin a little earlier. " Towards the middle
of March, the Shelleys and Miss Westbrook left Ire-
land. " These misstatements were of course uninten-
tional on the part of Mr. Rossetti, they seemed neces-
sary to him to sustain the reckless assertions of Mr.
Hogg as to the <( abrupt " termination of Shelley's
"Irish dream/' and his " sudden" vanishing out of
Dublin. Harriet's letter of the i8th March, 1812, in
the Record Office, shows that this " sudden " flight took
three weeks to prepare for. " We shall leave this
noisy town on the yth of April," says Harriet ; and
accordingly they left Dublin on that day, and reached
Holyhead after a somewhat longer passage than the
average. " We left Dublin, and arrived at Holyhead,"
writes Shelley to Miss Kitchener, " after a passage of
unusual length." The absurdity of making Shelley
" pass through' the Isle of Man," on his way from
Dublin to Holyhead, originated with Captain Medwin.
Anything more ludicrously untrue than the following
story by the gallant captain was never written : —

" His departure from Ireland was occasioned, as he
told me, by a hint from the police, and he, in haste,
took refuge in the Isle of Man — that then imperium in
imperio — that extra-judicial place where the debtor was
safe from his creditors, and the political refugee found
an asylum in his obscurity from the myrmidons of
the law. He remained, however, at Douglas but a

338 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

short time, and on his passage to some port in Wales
had a very narrow escape from his fatal element. He
had embarked in a small trading vessel which had only
three hands on board. It was the month of November,
and the weather, boisterous when they left the harbour,
increased to a dreadful gale. The skipper attributed
to Shelley's exertions so much the safety of the vessel,
that he refused on landing to accept his fare." —
Medwin' s Life of Shelley, vol. i. pp. 176, 177.

Making every allowance for Captain Medwin having
confounded something which he may have heard rela-
tive to the storm which Shelley encountered when going
to Ireland, with the return voyage in April, it is im-
possible, unless Shelley was guilty of a deliberate un-
truth, that he could have told Captain Medwin the other
circumstances of this marvellous narrative. He received
no hint from the police ; he never " took refuge " in
the Isle of Man, either " in haste " or with delibera-
tion. Travelling from Whitehaven to Dublin in Feb-
ruary, he " passed through the Isle of Man," because
it was his direct route. He never crossed the Channel
in the " month of November." The time at which he
actually left Dublin was the balmy season of early
April. "We left Dublin and arrived at Holyhead
after a passage of unusual length," is the simple fact
out of which Captain Medwin has constructed " a
political refugee " — " a small trading vessel with only
three hands on board" — an apocryphal "month of
November " — an imaginary " skipper " — the undaunted
Shelley — and the generous refusal of the "fare."
And yet this absurd story, and these unfounded state-
ments, have been repeated with a sort of parrot-like
iteration by every subsequent writer who has under-

MISTAKES OF MR. PEACOCK. 339

taken to give us an account of Shelley's life, except
indeed Mr. Hogg, who generally commits himself to
no one's nonsense but his own. They are adopted
without the slightest hesitation by Lady Shelley and
Mr. Rossetti (not to speak of Mr. Middleton) ; but
what is stranger still, they are given with several
other inaccuracies by Mr. Peacock. This gentleman's
remarkable papers in Fraser's Magazine were written,
as he tells us, for the purpose of " Commenting on
what has been published by others" about Shelley,
and for " correcting errors." In the following passage
of his own paper there is an error almost in every word.
" They then went to Ireland, landed at Cork, visited
the lakes of Killarney, and stayed some time in Dublin,
where Shelley became a warm repealer and eman-
cipator. They then went to the Isle of Man." —
Fraser's Magazine, June, 1858. Shelley never landed
at Cork ; he visited the lakes of Killarney a year later
from Dublin ; he was a repealer and emancipator
before he went to Ireland ; and he did not go to the
Isle of Man at all at the time referred to. So
much for the correction of previous errors by Mr.
Peacock.

Shelley, who had spent something less than a fort-
night in traversing " the whole of North, and part of
South Wales fruitlessly" in search of a house, was
"at length in a manner settled" at Nantgwilt, near
Rhayader, in Radnorshire, about the 2ist of April,

1812. We have had already his own description of
this house in the playful letter to Miss Kitchener,
which he wrote from Nantgwilt shortly after his
arrival there. Mr. Peacock, who visited Wales in

1813, gives the following minute particulars about the
place : —

Z 2

34o PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

"Nant Gwillt, the Wild Brook,, flows into the
Elan (a tributary of the Wye), about five miles above
Rhayader. Above the confluence, each stream ruiis
in a rocky channel, through a deep narrow valley. In
each of these valleys is or was a spacious mansion,
named from the respective streams. Cwm Elan House
was the seat of Mr. Grove, whom Shelley had visited
there before his marriage in 18 u. Nant Gwillt House,
when Shelley lived in it in 1812, was inhabited by a
farmer, who let some of the best rooms in lodgings.
At a subsequent period/' continues Mr. Peacock, " I
stayed a day in Rhayader, for the sake of seeing this
spot. It is a scene of singular beauty ." — Eraser's
Magazine, June, 1858, p. 652.

Shelley resided at Nantgwilt for seven weeks. He
changed his residence, not through any restlessness of
disposition, for it is evident he was reluctant to leave
it, but perhaps owing to the doubts of the " farmer"
as to the security of his rent. Such is the interpreta-
tion I put upon the following passage in a letter to
Godwin, dated " Cwm-Rhayader, June nth, 1812:—

" We are unexpectedly compelled to quit Nantgwilt.
I hope, however, before long time has elapsed to find
a home. These accidents are unavoidable to a minor/'
— Hogg, vol. ii. p. 129.

CHAPTER XIII.

A FTER the date of the letter with which the last
chapter concludes, the Shelleys could have stopped
but a day or two longer in Wales, as we find them
settled at Lynton, near Lymouth, seventeen miles
from Barnstaple, North Devonshire, at the beginning
of July. It would seem that Godwin having heard
from Shelley that he was " compelled" to leave Nant-
gwilt, had recommended to him the house of a friend
of Mrs. Godwin, a Mr. Eton, in the neighbourhood of
Lymouth. Shelley, who was at this time expecting
the visit not only of his long-looked-for friend and
correspondent, Miss Hitchener, but of Godwin and
his " estimable family," found Mr. Eton's house
too small. He selected another residence which,
though less imposing in appearance, had more accom-
modation. Writing to Godwin on the 5th of July
from Lymouth, after some days had been spent in
this fruitless negotiation with Mr. Eton, he says, " We
now reside in a small cottage, but the poverty and
humbleness of the apartments is compensated for by
their number, and we can invite our friends with a
consciousness that there is enclosed space wherein
they may sleep, which was not to be found at Mr.
Eton's. , . . . The climate is so mild that myrtles of
an immense size twine up our cottage, and roses blow

342 PERCY BYSRHE SHELLEY.

in the open air in winter." " Come, thou venerated
and excellent friend/' lie says in a letter dated two
days later, " and make us happy/' — Hogg, vol. ii.

PP- 134, T-37> J4°-

For some reason or another the rejection of Mr.

Eton's house seems to have ruffled the philosopher
more than might be expected from so slight a cause.
He is absolutely sharp and sarcastic in his reply to the
first letter. There is the faintest trace of a sneer in
the phrase, " This would sound well to Mr. Eton from
the eldest son of a gentleman of Sussex, with ample
fortune" (p. 142). The secret of his displeasure may
be found in the following passages of Shelley's letter
of July 5th, 1812:—

" I have a friend ; but first I will make you in
some measure acquainted with her. She is a woman
with whom her excellent qualities made me acquainted.
Though deriving her birth from a very humble source,
she contracted, during youth, a very deep and refined
habit of thinking ; her mind, naturally inquisitive and
penetrating, overstepped the bounds of prejudice. She
formed for herself an unbeaten path of life.

" By the patronage of a lady whose liberality of
mind is singular, this woman, at the age of twenty,
was enabled to commence the conduct of a school.
She concealed not the uncommon modes of thinking
which she adopted, and publicly instructed youth as a
Deist and a Republican. When I first knew her, she
had not read Political Justice, yet her life appeared to
me in a great degree modelled upon its precepts. Such
is the woman who is about to become an inmate of
our family. She will pass through London, and
I shall take the liberty of introducing her to you, one

MISS HITCHENER AND MR. GODWIN. 343

whom I do not consider unworthy of the advantage/'
—Hogg, vol. ii. pp. 135, 136.

There was something in this proposed introduction
of the estimable " Deist and Republican" of Hurst-
pierpoint, who imparted openly to the little girls of
her school the same " useful knowledge" that Mr.
Godwin had been surreptitiously inculcating under the
pseudonym of Edward Baldwin, that evidently dis-
pleased the philosopher. In his next letter he passes
over the allusion to Miss Hitchener in complete silence.
Possibly he could not forgive her for having practised
the principles of Political Justice without having read
the book. The Prophet Joe Smith would probably have
condemned a bigamist who ventured to take a second
wife without having been strengthened, if not in his
faith, at least in his practice, by the Book of Mormon.
In the very letter which contains the suggestion that
Godwin should take the strong-minded Miss Hitchener
under his wing and fly away to Lymouth to make
" Percy and his little circle" happy, Shelley writes : —

" As soon as we recover our financial liberty we
mean to come to London."

There is a slight flavour of Mr. Micawber's euphuistic
eloquence in the expression " financial liberty/' It
seemed in Mr. Godwin's estimation a strange way to
" recover" it to fill his cottage at Lymouth with " a
Deist and Republican" from Hurstpierpoint, accom-
panied doubtless by " the dear little Americans," of
whom we have already heard, and a Sage from Snow
Hill, surrounded by his "estimable family." The
philosopher was too old a bird to be caught by chaff",
and so let the ci-devant schoolmistress find her way to

344 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

Lymouth alone, as we shall find she was very well
able to do. She got the start of Godwin himself, who
eventually paid a solitary visit to Lymouth, with what
result will be told in due course.

Another member of Shelley's household at Ly-
mouth was Daniel Hill, the Irish servant who had so
(" improved " the success of his master's political
efforts in Dublin, by giving out that the projector of
the Philanthropic Association was only fifteen years of
age. The distribution of the pamphlets in Dublin
had been doubtless a very amusing occupation for
Daniel ; he found to his cost that it was rather a serious
matter to do the same thing in Devonshire.

Between the first week in July when Shelley was
settled at Lymouth, and the I9th of August when
this man Daniel Hill was arrested in the streets of
Barnstaple for circulating the Declaration of Rights,
Miss Kitchener must have arrived at the poet's cot-
tage, bringing with her the " large deal box " contain-
ing the Irish pamphlets and other printed papers of
Shelley opened at Holyhead by the surveyor of
Customs, but doubtless forwarded to its address on
the full charges being paid. She evidently was the
person supposed to be a foreigner, who was Shelley's
companion among the rocks at Lymouth when he
sent his frail navy afloat, freighted with " inflammable "
matter so graphically described by the town-clerk of
Barnstaple in 1812.

The curious papers in the Record Office, referring
to this extraordinary episode in Shelley's life at Ly-
mouth, have been published by Mr. Eossetti in the
Fortnightly Review for January, 1871, and therefore
need not be further referred to here. Mr. Rossetti
was not aware that an outline of this very singular

LITERARY HISTORY OF BARNSTAPLE. 345

story, derived from local information, was published
some years ago, before the existence of the papers in
the Record Office was known. It is given in the fol-
lowing very interesting work : —

"SKETCHES OF THE LITERARY HISTORY OP

BARNSTAPLE, &c.
BY JOHN ROBEETS CHANTER.

Barnstaple: Printed and sold by E. J. Arnold, High-street."
[1866.]

A correspondence with the author of this attractive
volume, Mr. Chanter, as well as with Lionel Bencraft,
Esq., the present town-clerk of Barnstaple, who in the
most obliging manner responded to my inquiries, en-
ables me to correct previous errors, as well as to supply
some additional information of a very interesting kind
relative to other literary ventures of Shelley at this
period. The following extract from Mr. Chanter's
work shows that the Letter to Lord Ellenborough was
not printed "in London," as Mr. Hogg says, giving
as a quotation from a letter of Shelley a paragraph
which is not to be found in it, but at Barnstaple.
Of Mr. Syle, the printer of this pamphlet, Mr.
Chanter thus speaks : —

"Mr. Syle, whose name appears as the publisher
of the works before mentioned, and who, by the assis-
tance and encouragement he afforded to young authors,
and in helping forward the literary aspirations of that
day, may well be called the ' John Murray' of Barn-
staple, was also a cultivator of the muses himself,
having contributed several poems and sketches to the
pages of the periodicals he published, and the news-
paper he subsequently edited. He was the principal
bookseller at Barnstaple for a long period of years.

346 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

" In connexion with Mr. Syle, I would here intro-
duce an interesting local episode, referring to that
exquisite poet and wild dreamer, ' Percy Bysshe
Shelley/

"About the year 1812, just after [a year after] his
ill-omened marriage with Harriet Westbrook, Shelley
and his wife took up their residence at Lynton. He was
then notorious for favouring the most wild and absurd
ideas on religious and political freedom, and had been
expelled from Oxford for publishing a pamphlet On
the Necessity of Atheism. During this period Shelley
came into Barn staple, and called at Mr. Syle's print-
ing-office, bringing with him a bundle of MSS., of
which he desired Mr. Syle to have one thousand copies
printed. This was done, Shelley coming in from time
to time to read the copy and correct the press. The
pamphlet was entitled ' A Letter to Lord Ellen-
borough, Chief Justice of the King's Bench, on the
prosecution of Daniel Isaac Eaton for the publication
of Paine's Age of Reason.3

" This Daniel Isaac Eaton was a bookseller ; he was
sentenced to stand in the pillory for one hour, which
sentence was carried into effect. The contents of the
pamphlet were of the most extreme, not to say violent
character; but the language was, as is the case in all
Shelley's works, forcible and grand, and full of strong
and indignant remarks on the prosecution, or as
Shelley considered it, persecution of the mere pub-
lisher of a work on a theological subject. I am
enabled by the kindness of Mr. Barry to give a line
as a specimen. The writer is drawing a contrast
between error and truth, and at the close of it
exclaims, ' Error skulks in holes and corners, letting
I dare not wait upon I would, like the poor cat i' th'

ARREST OF DANIEL HILL. 347

adage, but the eagle eye of truth darts through the
undazzling sunbeam of the immutable and just,
gathering wherewith to vivify and illumine the uni-
verse P* Shelley had about fifty copies as they were
printed; but before publication a strange circum-
stance occurred. A poor labouring manf of the
neighbourhood was taken up for posting bills about
the town and neighbourhood, headed ' Government
has no Rights/ It being seditious, he was tried and
sentenced to three months' imprisonment. J His
defence was, that a gentleman between Lynton and
Barnstaple had given him the bills to post, and paid
him 2,s. 6d. for doing the job. This gentleman was
Percy Bysshe Shelley. Mr. Brooke, who has fur-
nished some of these particulars, and who superintended
the printing of the pamphlet, has one of these bills, which
was printed in London§ and brought down here by

* See note on this passage, p. 349.

f This, of course, is a mistake. The papers in the Kecord
Office show that the person arrested was Daniel Hill, the Irish
servant of Shelley, the same who had distributed the pamphlets in
Dublin, and who had giveii out that his master was only fifteen
years of age.

J The sentence was six months' imprisonment or a penalty of
2Ool. The Town Clerk of Barnstaple, writing to Lord Sidmouth,
says : — " Daniel Hill has been convicted by the Mayor in ten
penalties of 2o£. each, for publishing and dispersing Printed Papers
without the printer's name being on them, under the Act of
39 George III. c. 79, and is now committed to the common Gaol of
this Borough for not paying the penalties, and having no goods on
which they could be levied." — State Papers, Domestic, George III.
No. 240.

§ The Declaration of Rights was printed in Dublin, as shown
by the hitherto unpublished letters of Shelley already given.
Shelley was not in London between his leaving Dublin, on the
7th of April, 1812, and his residence of a few days at the St.
James's Coffee House in the November of the same year.

348 PERCY BYSSHE SHEILE7.

Shelley, who had at that time very wild and crude
notions as to government and the regeneration of
society.

" This circumstance naturally alarmed Mr. Syle, as
the pamphlet was quite as seditious in its tone and
contents. He at once suppressed and destroyed the
remaining sheets, and had several interviews with
Shelley -to endeavour to get back the ones previously
delivered, but unsuccessfully, as they had been mostly
distributed.* One copy came into the hands of Mr.
Barry, and was given by him a few years since to
Leigh Hunt, the friend and biographer of Shelley,
though, I believe, neither the circumstances I have
narrated nor the pamphlet itself have ever been
noticed or included in any biography of the poet or
collection of his works ; but the incident as stated is
strictly correct." — Literary History of Barnstaple,
PP- 55. 56.

The documents recently discovered in the Record
Office confirm substantially the whole of this interest-
ing statement, which Mr. Chanter gave from the recol-
lection of some of his fellow-townsmen of Barnstaple.
Some of the mistakes and discrepancies have been
pointed out in the notes I have appended to Mr.
Chanter's narrative. A few more remain to be men-
tioned. The copy of the Letter to Lord Ellenborough,
presented by Mr. Barry to Leigh Hunt, was probably
the one from which Lady Shelley has printed the
greater portion of it in her Shelley Memorials. The
" omitted portions/' we are informed, " are the pas-

* The fifty copies received from Mr. Syle were, as we have seen,
sent up to Mr. Hookham, of New Bond Street, on the i8th of
August, the day before the arrest of Daniel Hill.

NOTES TO QUEEN MAB. 349

sages which Shelley introduced into the notes to
Queen Mab, and which are printed in the collected
edition of his works." But the striking passage
quoted by Mr. Chanter in his Literary History of
Barnstaple cannot be found either in the " greater
part" of the Letter published by Lady Shelley, or
" the omitted portions " introduced into the notes to
Queen Mab.* We have therefore as yet no complete
copy of the Letter to Lord Ellenborough. The notes to
Queen Mab are said also to contain the whole of the
tract entitled The Necessity of Atheism, but the quota-
tion alleged to be taken from Lord Bacon's treatise
De Augmentis, given in the solitary advertisement of
the tract which I have discovered, is not to be met with
in the notes to Queen Mab, neither have I been able to
find it in the treatise itself.

As the Barnstaple papers deserve to be reprinted
whenever a faithful and detailed Life of Shelley shall

* It is very singular to find that this passage alleged by Mr.
Chanter to be quoted from the Letter to Lord Ellenborough, is
substantially the same as that in Shelley's second Irish pamphlet,
the Proposals, which the reader will find at p. 274 of the present
volume. Shelley may possibly have introduced it again, with some
verbal alterations, into the Letter, but that is not likely. It will
be recollected, that along with the fifty copies of the Letter to
Lord Ellenborough, Shelley had also sent Mr. Hookham the
" two pamphlets " which he had " printed 'and distributed in
Ireland" (Shelley Memorials, p. 38). It may have been that
a copy of the Irish pamphlet, the Proposals, was left by Shelley
with the Barnstaple printer as a guide or pattern for the Letter.
In this way the passage may have remained in the memory of
Mr. Brooke, the actual printer, or of Mr. Barry, who is mentioned
as the direct authority, and been quoted years after by either of
them as having been cottained in the Letter to Lord Ellen-
borough, when in reality it was in the Proposals for an Associa-
tion.

350 PEROT BYSSHE SHELLEY.

be published, I may be permitted to point out one or
two mistakes in Mr. Rossetti's edition of these papers,
into which he was led by the occasionally unfaithful
transcript used by him. The following is perhaps the
most important. Speaking of the Declaration of Eights,
Mr. Rossetti says, " On the back of the copy in HilFs
possession was written ' Samuel Brembridge, of Barn-
staple, 19th August, i8i2/ being, I presume, the
person to whom Shelley intended this copy to be
delivered." — The Fortnightly Review, January, 1871,

PP- 72, 73-

This is in every way a mistake. In the first place,
the name is not " Brembridge," but " Bremridge,"
and secondly, Daniel Hill had many copies of the
Declaration of Rights in his possession. Evidence was
taken on one, and this one endorsed by the magistrate
before whom Hill was in the first instance taken, was
sent up to London to Lord Sidmouth. Lionel Ben-
craft, Esq., the present town-clerk of Barnstaple,
informs me that " Samuel Bremridge was clerk to
the county justices in 1812." Mr. Chanter has kindly
supplemented this information by the following fact :
"Samuel Bremridge was junior alderman in 1812,
and as such would be also an acting magistrate."

In the letter of Henry Drake, town-clerk (Fortnightly
Review, p. 79, line 3), " some of these small boxes "
is printed for " one of these small boxes," a mistake
which the context itself plainly points out.

The letter of Henry Drake was referred to " Mr.
Litchfield" for his advice. Mr. Rossetti suggests
that he may have been " the standing counsel em-
ployed by the Home Office." The position held by Mr.
Litch field was that of " Solicitor to the Treasury."

Among the papers found on the person of Daniel

" THE DEVIL'S WALK." 351

Hill when arrested, was a second printed broadside
containing a poem called The Devil's Walk. A
Ballad. It is printed in three columns, and contains
143 lines. Mr. Rossetti, who reproduces it in the
Fortnightly Review (not without two or three trifling
errors of the press), says/ 'Probably The Devil's Walk
was written only a short time before Daniel Hill was
commissioned to distribute it, in August, 1812; if so,
Shelley had now already begun the writing of Queen
Mab." Unless Shelley had commenced the writing
of Queen Mab in Dublin this is incorrect. Miss
Kitchener had been living with Shelley at Lymouth
for some time when Daniel Hill was arrested, pro-
bably from the first week or two of his residence there.
Now there is in existence a long unpublished letter
addressed to her previously, containing the greater part
of The Devil's Walk, in manuscript. Speaking of the
stanzas he sends, he says, " perhaps they may amuse
you/' It is plain from Mr. Brooke's silence that The
Devil's Walk was not printed at Mr. Syle's office in
Barnstaple. It was probably printed, as well as written,
in Dublin. The poem itself has little merit : composed
almost avowedly in imitation of the well-known pieces
of Southey and Coleridge, it lacks the humour and
the lyrical felicity of its models. There is occa-
sionally a vigorous line. The following stanza is quite
in the spirit of the motto from The Curse of Kehama
prefixed to the Poetical Essay on the Existing State of
Things. In the first line Mr. Rossetti has omitted
" the '"' from before " death-birds/' The allusion seems
to be to the same subject as that on which the verses
Mother and Son were written.

The poet is describing no less a personage than " the
first gentleman in Europe :" —

352 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

" Fat as. the death-birds on Erin's shore,
That glutted themselves in her dearest gore,

And flitted round Castlereagh,*

When they snatched the Patriot's heart, that his grasp
Had torn from its widow's maniac clasp,
And fled at the dawn of day."

The prison books now existing at Barnstaple do not
go back so far as 1812, and therefore there is no record
of the time at which Daniel Hill was discharged. The
matter is not of much importance, except that Mr.
Hogg tells us that " the penalty was paid/" and that,
" marvellous to relate, Bysshe took the released bill-
sticker into his service" (vol. ii. p. 213). The latter
observation shows how completely ignorant Mr. Hogg
was of this period of his friend's life. It 'is not likely
that Shelley could have raised 2oo/. to release his ser-
vant, when he had to leave Lymouth in debt to his
landlady, who kindly borrowed 3^. also for him from
a neighbour. For this debt and this loan, Godwin
tells us that Shelley left with the " good creature, the
woman of the house," " a draft upon the Honourable
Mr. Lawleys [Lawless], brother to Lord Cloncurry."
Unfortunately Lord Cloncurry had no bi'other. We

* Perhaps there was but one point on which Shelley and Lord
Castlereagh ever agreed, and that was in extravagant admiration of
Lady Morgan's Missionary, which was published by John Joseph
Stockdale in 1811. Lady Morgan's literary executor in her
Memoirs says that — "His lordship was, perhaps, the greatest
admirer the Missionary ever found," vol. i. p. 424. He had a
formidable rival in Shelley, who several times speaks of " Miss
Owenson's Missionary, an Indian Tale." " It is really a divine
thing," he writes in one of his letters. " Luxima, the Indian, is
an angel. What a pity that we cannot incorporate these creations
of fancy ; the very thoughts of them thrill the soul ! Since I have
read this book I have read no other." — Hogg, vol. i. p. 397 ; see
also pp. 392 and 407.

SHELLEY AT TANYRALLT. 353

have no doubt that the draft was on Mr. John Law-
less,, Shelley's "literary friend" in Dublin, not the
brother, but a distant relation of Lord Cloncurry. We
trust that the good Mrs. Hooper at Lymouth was
not kept out of her money until the " enormous pro-
fits" which Shelley so sanguinely expected from the
publication of The History of Ireland were realized.
We hear no more of Daniel Hill until six months
later — a period which exactly coincides with the term
of his imprisonment — when he turned up at Tanyrallt,
in North Wales, the day preceding the night on which
the celebrated so-called attempted assassination took
place there.

As soon as Shelley could make his arrangements
after this untoward affair about his servant, he left
Lymouth, and crossing the Bristol Channel proceeded
to Wales, where, after moving about a little, he at
length settled near Tremadoc in a handsome lodge
called Tan-yr-allt, built by W. A. Madocks, M.P.
for Boston.* Three weeks after the Shelleys left
Lymouth, poor Godwin paid the long-expected visit.
" The Shelleys were gone \" as he himself exclaims
in a letter addressed to his wife, which will be
found in Lady Shelley's Memorials. Mr. Hogg, who
suffered a disappointment precisely similar six months
later in Dublin, describes the philosopher's bewilder-
ment with some humour. But the facts, as stated by

* In an interesting portrait of this gentleman in my possession,
painted by J. Ramsay, engraved by C. Turner, he is called " W.
A. Madocks, Esq., Fellow of All Souls College, and M.P. for
Boston." Through the open window there is a pleasing view of
the sea and the little town of Tremadoc. Mr. Madocks is repre-
sented pointing to the " plan of the embankment at Tre-Madoc,
<fec.," which lies outspread before him.

A A

354 PERCY BTSSHE SHELLEY.

him, are all invented, as may be seen by reading
Godwin's own account of the matter.

Shelley, speaking of his new residence, says : —

" We simple people live here in a cottage extensive
and tasty enough for the villa of an Italian prince.
The rent, as you may conceive, is large, but it is an
object with us that they allow it to remain unpaid till
I am of age."

Tanyrallt seems to have been a favourite resting-
place for other wandering bards besides Shelley.
Rogers passed a night in it the year before. Writing
to Moore from Aberystwith, Sept. i9th, 1811, the
author of The Pleasures of Memory says : —

"I slept a night at Wm. Madocks's. He is a
great lord in his little city of Tre-Madoc — has built a
church, and a market-place, and a town-hall, and a
square, and a street, where the sea roared a year or
two ago; and this week holds an Eysteddfodd, or
^feeting of Bards. The comet is very brilliant here, and
every evening makes a brilliant path across the water."
— Moore's Memoirs, vol. viii. p. 94.

In [812 the sea roared again so dreadfully around
this creation of Mr. Madocks's taste and public spirit
as to threaten it with destruction. Shelley exerted
himself in the most praiseworthy manner in endea-
vouring to raise a fund for the preservation of the
breakwater, on the stability of which the existence of
new Tremadoc depended. He even went to London,
it is said, to use his influence with the Duke of Nor-
folk and others for the same good object. It is stated
that Shelley headed the subscription list with one from
himself of 500^. This is scarcely credible, unless indeed
it was understood that the subscription, like his rent,

THE EMBANKMENT AT TEE-MA DOC. 355

was not to be paid till he came of age. We shall find
that in addition to the ordinary expenses of his house-
hold and the cost of going up to London with Harriet
and the two Elizas on this and perhaps other business,
he had to pay, "with a heavy heart and an unwilling
hand/' the " stipend" of the amiable " Deist and Re-
publican/' whom he had disturbed in her self-support-
ing, if not very useful, calling at Hurstpierpoint. It
is surely impossible that Shelley could have allowed
his servant Daniel Hill to remain all this time con-
fined as a criminal in the gaol of Barnstaple, when
perhaps a third of the sum alleged to be so generously
presented to Mr. Madocks would have relieved him.
Daniel Hill had been Shelley's agent, and was vica-
riously suffering for his master's indiscretion. If,
after spending six months in prison, he heard of such
an uncalled-for and, in Shelley's circumstances at the
time, extravagant outlay, one would be disposed to
forgive him if, as has been argued, he got up the so-
called attempted assassination at Tanyrallt, not for th,e
purpose of doing Shelley any positive harm, but of
frightening him a little — of " paying him out/' as it
has been called, for the scrape into which he had been
brought by his philanthropic young master.

In November, 1812, Shelley went up to London to
forward the subscription for the Tremadoc embank-
ment. He had another object, perhaps not less impor-
tant to him — namely, to get rid of Miss Kitchener.
That lady, with Harriet and Eliza Westbrook, accom-
panied Shelley on this short visit. They all put up
at the St. James's Coffee House, in St. James's Street.
Mr. Hogg says he visited them there, and witnessed
the departure of Miss Kitchener from this hotel on a
certain Sunday evening. " The chronology of such

A A 2

356 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

an interview/' says Mr. Hogg, " need not be exact."
Exact chronology is certainly not the failing of Mr.
Hogg's book ; and so we have two events which must
have occurred on the same day and in the same place,
separated in his book by two hundred pages.* These
are his dining with Bysshe, Harriet, and Eliza West-
brook at " a hotel near St. James's Palace" " during
Shelley's brief visit to London in November, 1812,"
and the departure or dismissal of Miss Kitchener. I
have made ample notes of all the discrepancies of
his story, but they would take up too much space
here.

Mr. Hogg tells us, that after the departure of Miss
Kitchener from the hotel, on the evening he dined
with Shelley, Harriet and Eliza Westbrook withdrew
to pack up for their journey next day to Tanyrallt.
He also tells us that the day was Sunday ; but from
Shelley's letter of the 7th November to Mr. Williams
(vol. ii. p. i 75), we know that it must have been Wed-
nesday, the nth. The Shelley s and Eliza Westbrook
returned to Tanyrallt on the i2th. Thus the " brief
visit "lasted little more than a week, and Miss Kitch-
ener was with them up to the eve of their departure.
And yet we have the following curious statement by
Lady Shelley : —

" During his visit to London, Shelley made the
personal acquaintance of Godwin, with whom he lived
for a time ; and to the philosopher's daughter Fanny
he addressed the subjoined letter, after having rather
abruptly left their house." — Shelley Memorials, p. 43.

* It is amusing to compare the two descriptions. See Hogg,
vol. ii. p. 171, and the same volume, p. 365.

WHO WAS "FANNY GODWIN"? 357

The reader is referred to the letter in the Memorials :
it is a very singular one. But how could Shelley
have " lived with Godwin for a time" during this
brief visit ? Did he go alone, leaving " Harriet and
the ladies " (who must have been Eliza Westbrook
arid Eliza Kitchener) at the St. James's Coffee
House ?* Or did the whole party migrate together to
Skinner Street? The latter supposition is scarcely
probable. Another curious matter is, that Lady
Shelley calls " Fanny Godwin" " the philosopher's
daughter." This she certainly was not, as any one
who reads attentively the Memoirs of the Author of a
Vindication of the Rights of Woman will see. Fanny,
or Frances, was the daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft
and Gilbert Imlay. She was born at Havre, on the
I4th of May, 1 794 ; so that when she wrote to Shelley
in 1812, she had just passed her eighteenth year.
This mistake about " Fanny Godwin" is now corrected
for the first time. The latest and on the whole the
most correct biographer of Shelley thus repeats it : —

" The household of Godwin consisted, besides him-
self, of his second wife, who had been previously mar-
ried to a Mr. Clairmont ; Mary, his daughter by his
first wife ; Fanny, his daughter by his second wife ;
and Clare and Charles Clairmont, the children of the
second wife by her first marriage." — Rossetti's Memoir
of Shelley, p. Ixxviii.

This list is inaccurate in two ways. In addition to
the mistake about Fanny, it omits the only child of
Godwin by his second marriage, William his son, who
died of cholera in 1832, and a memoir of whom has

* Letter to Mr. Williams, the agent of Mr. Madocks, St.
James's Coffee House, Nov. 7th, 1812. See Eogg, vol. ii. p. 175.

35g PERCY B YSSHE SHELLEY.

been written by his father. This second marriage of
Godwin took place in 1801. Were Fanny even his
eldest child by that marriage, she could only have
been ten years of age in 1812. It is evident that
Shelley's letter published in the Memorials was not
written to a child of that age. This is but a sample
of the incredible number of mistakes that disfigure all
the published Lives of Shelley, and destroy their authen-
ticity. As to Mr. Hogg, it is doubtful if he has told
one single fact truly.

It is a most melancholy thought if we recall the
fact that this poor Fanny Imlay or Godwin, like Har-
riet Shelley, committed suicide by drowning. Less
sad, but almost equally singular, is it to remember that
her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, when abandoned, or
at least neglected by Imlay, attempted the same fate
from Putney Bridge.* When we add to these the cata-
strophe of Shelley himself, we have a series of coin-

* This event occurred in October, 179^* The details, as pub-
lished by Mr. Godwin, may be here given.

" She resolved to plunge herself in the Thames ; and, not being
satisfied with any spot nearer to London, she took a boat, arid rowed
to Putney. Her first thought had led her to Battersea Bridge,
but she found it too public. It was night when she arrived at
Putney, and by that time had begun to rain with great violence.
The rain suggested to her the idea of walking up and down the
bridge, till her clothes were thoroughly drenched and heavy with
the wet, which she did for half-an-hour without meeting a human
being. She then leaped from the top of the bridge, but still
seemed to find a difficulty in sinking, which she endeavoured to
counteract by pressing her clothes closely round her. After some

time she became insensible After having been for a

considerable time insensible, she was recovered by the exertions of
those by whom the body was found." — Memoirs of the Author
of a Vindication of the Rights of Woman. By William Godwin.
London, 1798, pp. 132, 133, 134.

THE BROWN DEMON. 359

cidences that is exceedingly painful, if not awful to
reflect on.

But we must draw this investigation to a close, not
indeed through any defect of matter, but from want
of space. We shall briefly allude to what is called
(f the Tanyrallt Mystery;" and suggest an explanation
not previously given.

Three weeks after Shelley's return to Tanyrallt, he
thus writes to Mr. Hogg, whose offence at York in the
preceding year had by this time been forgiven. " The
Brown Demon" was of course Miss Hitchener, who
but nine months before Shelley had invited to " give
up her school, abandon everything, and live with him
for ever."

" Tanyrallt, Dec. 3rd, 1812.

Cf . . . . The Brown Demon, as we call our late tor-
mentor and schoolmistress, must receive her stipend ; I
pay it with a heavy heart and an unwilling hand ; but
it must be so. She was deprived by our misjudging
haste of a situation where she was going on smoothly ;
and now she says that her reputation is gone, her
health ruined, her peace, of mind destroyed by my
barbarity. This is not all fact ; but certainly she is
embarrassed and poor, and we being in some degree
the cause, we ought to obviate it. She is an artful,
superficial, ugly, hermaphroditical beast of a woman,
and my astonishment at my fatuity, inconsistency, and
bad taste was never so great as after living four months
with her as an inmate. What would Hell be, were
such a woman in Heaven?" — Hogg, vol. ii. p. 194.

We have here the position in which the parties
stood towards each other on the 3rd of December,
1812 : the lady asserting that her reputation was gone,

36o PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

her health ruined, and her peace of mind destroyed by
the barbarity of the poet, the poet using towards the
lady nearly the most offensive language that could be
applied to a woman. What Shelley said to Mr. Hogg
he may have repeated to others, perhaps to Miss
Kitchener herself. In any case she must have known
the utter loathing felt for her by her late admirer.
We are not told what was the amount of the " stipend,"
or if it was ever paid. She was dismissed, as we have
seen, on the nth of November. It is plain that
Shelley's letter of the 3rd of December alludes only
to a promise to pay. On the 1 1 th of February three
months stipend would be due. Between the iith
and 26th there is just sufficient time for repeated
demands, threats, &c., until the crisis came.

That Shelley had received some threats is certain
from Harriet's well-known letter, written from the house
of Mr. John Lawless, 35, Cuffe Street, Dublin.* " On

* It has been conjectured by Dr. Madden in his Life of Lady
Slessington (second edition, vol. iii. p. 418), that Shelley's selec-
tion of this locality arose from his straitened circumstances at the
time. Mr. Middleton, in his Shelley and his Writings, quoting
the passage says, " He took up his abode at No. 35, Cuffe Street,
Stephen's Green, a locality sufficient to show the nature of the
pecuniary circumstances in which Shelley was placed." This is
an entire mistake. Shelley did not go to Cuffe Street because it
was a cheap place of residence, which it scarcely could have been.
He went there because his friend Mr. John Lawless resided there.
We have seen how intimately he had been connected with him
the year before. The History of Ireland, the efforts to raise
money for its production, the curious assertion of the editor of
The Dublin Evening Post, and the draft on Mr. Lawless given
by Shelley to his landlady at Ly mouth, all show how intimate
that connexion had been. But the reflection on the street itself
is unfounded. In 1813 it was inhabited chiefly by professional
people, barristers, proctors, and attorneys. The house was a pri-
vate one, and when Mr. Hogg called there in March, 1813, the

THE MYSTERIOUS OUTRAGE AT TANYRALLT. 361

Friday night, the s6th of February, we retired to bed
between ten and eleven o'clock. We had been in bed
about half an hour, when Mr. Shelley heard a noise
proceeding from one of the parlours. He imme-
diately went downstairs with two pistols, which he had
loaded that night, expecting to have occasion for them.3'
The circumstances of the attack are too well known to
be repeated here. Mrs. Shelley continues : " We all
assembled in the parlour, where we remained for two
hours. Mr. S. then advised us to retire, thinking it
impossible he would make a second attack. We left
Bysshe and one man-servant [Mr. Hogg's version of
the letter gives ( ' our man-servant "] , who had only
arrived that day, and who knew nothing of the house,
to sit up/' Three hours after this, when " Bysshe
had sent Daniel to see what hour it was/' the second
attack was made. The would-be assassin fired at
Shelley, the ball passing through his flannel gown.
Bysshe fired at his assailant, but the pistol would not
go off. "He then aimed a blow at him with an old
sword which we found in the house. The assassin
attempted to get the sword from him, and just as he
was getting it away, Dan rushed into the room,
when he made his escape." — Shelley Memorials, p. 59.
By some writers the whole of this alleged attack is
supposed to be an entire delusion on the part of

door was opened by " a man-servant." And yet the most recent
biographer of Shelley improves upon his authority by transferring
the mistaken description of the street to the house. " After a
short stay in an uninviting house, No. 35 > Great Cuffe Street,
Dublin," &c. (Rossetti's Memoir, p. Ixvi.). That it was not " an
uninviting house " in one sense at least, Mr. Hogg had some
pleasant reasons for remembering, as the reader" will find by refer-
ring to the second volume of the Life of Shelley, p. 238.

362 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

Shelley; but Harriet's letter is too circumstantial to
admit of such an explanation. It is said that Eliza
Westbrook in after life spoke frequently with terror of
the events of this night. Shelley himself it is plain
expected an attack,, having loaded his pistols that night,
ee expecting to have occasion for them." A later solu-
tion of the difficulty is, that the whole thing was a
practical joke on the part of Daniel Hill, who had
arrived on that day, probably after the expiration of
his imprisonment, at Barnstaple, the whole term of
which would have expired on the i8th of February.
In this case he must have had a confidant, who ran
the risk of being shot by Shelley; or if he escaped
that fate, of being detected and prosecuted for the
outrage. It is much more probable that the attack
was made in ignorance of the addition to the Tany-
rallt garrison, occasioned by the unexpected arrival of
Daniel Hill, and that it was frustrated by that fortu-
nate circumstance.

The attack then seems to have been a real one.
Shelley evidently had reason for believing that he had
provoked the enmity of some one. This hostility was
not confined to himself. Harriet says in her post-
script to Shelley's first letter of two lines to Mr.
Hookham — " It is no common robber we dread, but a
person who is actuated by revenge, and who threatens
my life, and my sister's as well." All this shows that
Shelley and Harriet had been anticipating for some
time the violence of a person who was meditating re-
venge against the whole party. This person was one
who had some private injury to revenge. The injury
was one for which Shelley, Harriet, and Eliza West-
brook were equally responsible. The strange threats
of their assailant which Harriet so courageously re-

PROBABLE SOLUTION OF THE MYSTERY. 363

peats prove this. The enemy was " no common
robber/' but one who was " actuated by revenge/'
who threatened her own life and her sister's as well
as Shelley's.

Now in Shelleyan history up to this period, as far
as it has yet been revealed to us, there was . but one
person who had any grounds of complaint against
Shelley, Harriet Shelley, and Eliza Westbrook. That
person was Miss Hitchener. We know the terms in
which Shelley spoke of her, and the charges of " bar-
barity" she brought against Shelley. Mr. Hogg un-
consciously unites the three in the indictment which
Miss Hitchener had evidently framed in her mind
against them. Speaking of the " Brown Demon," he
says : —

" At first she possessed some influence over the
young couple : but the charming Eliza would not tole-
rate any influence but her own. She had worked
upon Harriet's feelings, and the good Harriet had
succeeded in making his former favourite odious to
Bysshe."— Vol. ii. p. 366.

Here we have the three persons against whom the
mysterious assailant at Tanyrallt declared open war, all
united in an actual depreciation and an implied injury
against Miss Hitchener. She declared in some way
which Shelley could not misunderstand, that by his
conduct towards her she had lost her health, her re-
putation, and her peace of mind. She was promised
some compensation, but we have no evidence that it
was paid. Even if it were, the sense of injury would
have remained. On her expulsion from " Percy's
little circle" in London on the nth of November,
, she returned in all likelihood to her father's

3 64 PERCY B YSSHE SHELLEY.

house. The Earl of Chichester has told us in his
letter to Sir Francis Freeling, that Miss Kitchener's
father, whose original name was Yorke, had been a
smuggler, and was then a publican at Hurstpierpoint.
Surely here is material enough for the romance of
Tanyrallt, without dragging in poor Daniel Hill and
an imaginary confederate of his — a " gaol-bird" from
Barnstaple, who had travelled all the way to Tremadoc,
and ran the imminent risk of being shot or hanged
merely to oblige " Dan." The wrongs of Miss Kitch-
ener we can have little doubt were discussed around
the paternal bar at Hurstpierpoint. The " stipend"
may not have been paid. Who knows but that it was
after an ineffectual demand, by an agent either of the
father or the daughter, for the first quarter's instal-
ment, which was due a few days before the memorable
26th of February, and the threats that may have fol-
lowed the disappointment, that Shelley may have
thought it expedient to load his pistols, te expecting to
have occasion for them ?" This may not be the solu-
tion of the mystery, but it is the most reasonable that
has been yet suggested.

This investigation for the present must terminate
here. It extends only over the period of a few years,
and yet has resulted in the discovery of some new facts
of great importance, and the correction of many errors.
If it contained nothing but the history of the Poetical
Essay, the facts and circumstances connected with
which have been so curiously discovered and traced by
the present writer, it would form no unimportant addi-
tion to our previous knowledge of the poet's life.
Many notes referring to the subsequent career of Shelley
have already been compiled by the author, the result

SHELLEY 'S HOUSE NEAR LERICI. 365

of much investigation not only in England but in
Italy. * The publication of these notes is for the pre-
sent postponed, in the hope that they may include at
no distant day a review of the long-promised justifica-
tion or apologia of Shelley for that circumstance which
his warmest admirers must, for the present, consider
the most unhappy and the least excusable event of his
life.

* As an example of the careless way in which the Italian portion
of Shelley's life has been written, it may be mentioned that the
name of the village near Lerici, beside which stands the celebrated
house Casa Magni, in which Shelley last resided, has never been
correctly given in any Life of the poet. From Mrs. Shelley to Mr.
Rossetti it has been called " Sant' Arenzo." Its real name, S. Te-
renzio, is given in the following quotation from the Guida Pit-
torica del Golfo della Spezia, which I bought at Spezia (June
15, 1862) in one of two visits which I paid to this interesting
house : —

" Presso 8. Terenzio, sulla punta che chiude il seno di Lerici,
s'innalza la fortezza di S. Teresa, che incrocicchia con 1'opposta di
S. Maria.

"Sulle alture circostanti osservasi la Merigola, amena ville-
giatura del Marchese Olandini. Ombrosi boschetti le fanno roman-
tico serto; sorprendente e il panorama del Golfo che di lassii si
presenta allo sguardo. Nel 1822 su quei verdi poggi sedevano due
celebri cantori di Albione, vaghi di contemplare la magnificenza
del migliore tra i golfi, Byron cioe coll amico Shelley ; ma oime,
che quest' ultimo era destinato a perire miseramente tra quelli stessi
tratti di mare, che allora in estasi di ammirazione il rapivano."—
p. 40. Spezia, 1861.

The allusion to Shelley in the foregoing extract is in itself very
interesting.

SUPPLEMENT,

CONTAINING

SHELLEY'S POLITICAL PAMPHLETS

PUBLISHED IN ENGLAND.

IN order to render this collection of Shelley's Political
Pamphlets complete, it has been thought advisable to
include in the present volume the two tracts which he
published in 1817 under the name of The Hermit of
Marlow. The pamphlets have been sometimes con-
founded with each other, and are nearly as scarce as
those which Shelley printed in Ireland.

FOB PUTTING

REFORM TO THE VOTE

THROUGHOUT THE KINGDOM.

BY THE HERMIT OF MARLOW.

LONDON:

PRINTED FOR C. AND J. OLLIER,
3, WELBECK STREET, CAVENDISH SQUARE}
By C. H. Reynell, 21, Piccadilly.

1817.

B B

A PROPOSAL, &o.

A GREAT question is now agitating in this nation,
which no man or party of men is competent to
decide ; indeed there are no materials of evidence
which can afford a foresight of the result. Yet on its
issue depends whether we are to be slaves or free men.
It is needless to recapitulate all that has been said
about Reform. Every one is agreed that the House
of Commons is not a representation of the people.
The only theoretical question that remains is, whether
the people ought to legislate for themselves, or be
governed by laws and impoverished by taxes originat-
ing in the edicts of an assembly which represents
somewhat less than a thousandth part of the entire
community. I think they ought not to be so taxed
and governed. An hospital for lunatics is the only
theatre where we can conceive so mournful a comedy
to be exhibited as this mighty nation now exhibits :
a single person bullying and swindling a thousand
of his comrades out of all they possessed in the
world, and then trampling and spitting upon them,
though he were the most contemptible and degraded
of mankind, and they had strength in their arms
and courage in their hearts. Such a parable realized
in political society is a spectacle worthy of the utmost
indignation and abhorrence.
BBS

372 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

The prerogatives of Parliament constitute a sove-
reignty which is exercised in contempt of the People,
and it is in strict consistency with the laws of human
nature that it should have been exercised for the
People's misery and ruin. Those whom they despise,
men instinctively seek to render slavish and wretched,
that their scorn may be secure. It is the object of
the Reformers to restore the People to a sovereignty
thus held in their contempt. It is my object, or I
would be silent now.

Servitude is sometimes voluntary. Perhaps the
People choose to be enslaved ; perhaps it is their will
to be degraded and ignorant and famished; perhaps
custom is their only God, and they its fanatic wor-
shippers will shiver in frost and waste in famine
rather than deny that idol, perhaps the majority of
this nation decree that they will not be represented in
Parliament, that they will not deprive of power those
who have reduced them to the miserable condition in
which they now exist. It is their will — it is their
own concern. If such be their decision, the cham-
pions of the rights and the mourners over the errors
and calamities of man, must retire to their homes in
silence, until accumulated sufferings shall have pro-
duced the effect of reason.

The question now at issue is, whether the majority
of the adult individuals of the United Kingdom of
Great Britain and Ireland desire or no a complete
representation in the Legislative Assembly.

I have no doubt that such is their will, and I
believe this is the opinion of most persons conversant
with the state of the public feeling. But the fact
ought to be formally ascertained before we proceed.
If the majority of the adult population should solemnly

PROPOSAL FOR PUTTING REFORM TO THE VOTE. 373

state their desire to be, that the representatives whom
they might appoint should constitute the Commons
House of Parliament, there is an end to the dispute.
Parliament would then be required, not petitioned, to
prepare some effectual plan for carrying the general
will into effect ; and if Parliament should then refuse,
the consequences of the contest that might ensue
would rest on its presumption and temerity. Parlia-
ment would have rebelled against the People then.

If the majority of the adult population shall, when
seriously called upon for their opinion, determine on
grounds, however erroneous, that the experiment of
innovation by Reform in Parliament is an evil of
greater magnitude than the consequences of mis-
government to which Parliament has afforded a con-
stitutional sanction, then it becomes us to be silent ;
and we should be guilty of the great crime which I
have conditionally imputed to the House of Commons,
if after unequivocal evidence that it was the national
will to acquiesce in the existing system we should, by
partial assemblies of the multitude, or by any party
acts, excite the minority to disturb this decision.

The first step towards Reform is to ascertain this
point. For which purpose I think the following plan
would be effectual : —

That a Meeting should be appointed to be held at

the Crown and Anchor Tavern on the of ,

to take into consideration the most effectual measures
for ascertaining whether or no, a Reform in Parlia-
ment is the will of the majority of the individuals of
the British Nation.

That the most eloquent and the most virtuous
and the most venerable among the Friends of Liberty,
should employ their authority and intellect to per-

374 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

suade men to lay aside all animosity and even dis-
cussion respecting the topics on which they are dis-
united, and by the love which they bear to their
suffering country conjure them to contribute all their
energies to set this great question at rest — whether
the Nation desires a Reform in Parliament or no ?

That the friends of Reform, residing in any part of
the country, be earnestly entreated to lend perhaps
their last and the decisive effort to set their hopes and
fears at rest ; that those who can should go to London,
and those who cannot, but who yet feel that the aid
of their talents might be beneficial, should address a
letter to the Chairman of the Meeting, explaining
their sentiments : let these letters be read aloud, let
all things be transacted in the face of day. Let Re-
solutions, of an import similar to those that follow be
proposed.

1. That those who think that it is the duty of the
People of this nation to exact such a Reform in the
Commons House of Parliament, as should make that
House a complete representation of their will, and
that the People have a right to perform this duty,
assemble here for the purpose of collecting evidence
as to how far it is the will of the majority of the
People to acquit themselves of this duty, and to exer-
cise this right.

2. That the population of Great Britain and Ireland
be divided into three hundred distinct portions, each
to contain an equal number of inhabitants, and three
hundred persons be commissioned, each personally to
visit every individual within the district named in his
commission, and to inquire whether or no that indi-
vidual is willing to sign the declaration contained in
the third Resolution, requesting him to annex to his

PROPOSAL FOR PUTTING REFORM TO THE VOTE. 375

signature any explanation or exposure [exposition ?] of
his sentiments which he might choose to place on
record. That the following Declaration be proposed
for signature : —

3. That the House of Commons does not represent
the will of the People of the British Nation ; we the
undersigned therefore declare, and publish, and our
signatures annexed shall be evidence of our firm and
solemn conviction that the liberty, the happiness, and
the majesty of the great nation to which it is our
boast to belong, have been brought into danger and
suffered to decay through the corrupt and inadequate
manner in which Members are chosen to sit in the
Commons House of Parliament; we hereby express,
before God and our country, a deliberate and unbiassed
persuasion, that it is our duty, if we shall be found in
the minority in this great question, incessantly to
petition ; if among the majority, to require and exact
that that House should originate such measures of
Reform as would render its Members the actual Re-
presentatives of the Nation.

4. That this Meeting shall be held day after day,
until it determines on the whole detail of the plan for
collecting evidence as to the will of the nation on the
subject of a Reform in Parliament.

5. That this Meeting disclaims any design, however
remote, of lending their sanction to the revolutionary
and disorganizing schemes which have been most
falsely imputed to the Friends of Reform, and declares
that its object is purely constitutional.

6. That a subscription be set on foot to defray the
expenses of this Plan.

In the foregoing proposal of Resolutions, to be
submitted to a National Meeting of the Friends of

3 76 PERCY B YSSHE SHELLEY.

Reform, I have purposely avoided detail. If it shall
prove that' I iiave in any degree afforded a hint to
men who have earned and established their popularity I
by personal sacrifices and intellectual eminence such
as I have not the presumption to rival, let it belong 1
to them to pursue and develope all suggestions relating
to the great cause of liberty which has been nurtured
(I am scarcely conscious of a metaphor) with their
very sweat, and blood, and tears : some have tended
it in dungeons, others have cherished it in famine, .all
have been constant to it amidst persecution and,
calumny, and in the face of the sanctions of power •:-?&<&
so accomplish what ye have begun.,

I shall mention therefore only one point relating ,
to the practical part of my Proposal. Considerable.}
expenses, according to my present conception, would
be necessarily incurred : funds should be created by ,
subscription to meet these demands. I have an income
of a thousand a year, on which I support my wife and
children in decent comfort, and from which I satisfy,, ,
certain large claims of general justice. Should any
plan resembling that which I have proposed be deter* H;'?
mined on by you, I will give ioo/., being a tenth part
of one year's income, towards its object; and I wiH t
not deem so proudly of myself, as to believe that Jom
shall stand alone in this respect, when any rational
and consistent scheme for the public benefit shall have; ) n
received the sanction of those great and good men
who have devoted themselves for its preservation. d*djj*

A certain degree of coalition among the sineej§u3<
Friends of Heform, in whatever shape, is indispensable
to the success of this proposal. The friends of Uni-
versal or of Limited Suffrage, of Annual or Triennial
Parliaments, ought to settle these subjects on which

PROPOSAL FOR PUTTING REFORM TO THE VOTE. 377

they diagsree, when it is known whether the Nation
desires that measure on which they are all agreed.
It is trivial to discuss what species of Reform shall
have place, when it yet remains a question whether
there will be any Reform or no.

Meanwhile, nothing remains for me but to state
explicitly my sentiments on this subject of Reform.
The statement is indeed quite foreign to the merits of
the Proposal in itself, and I should have suppressed it
until called upon to subscribe such a requisition as I
have suggested, if the question which it is natural to
ask, as to what are the sentiments of the person who
originates the scheme, could have received in any other
manner a more simple and direct reply. It appears
to me that Annual Parliaments ought to be adopted
as an immediate measure, as one which strongly tends
to preserve the liberty and happiness of the Nation ;
it would enable men to cultivate those energies on
which the performance of the political duties belong-
ing to the citizen of a free state as the rightful guar-
dian of its prosperity essentially depends ; it would
familiarize men with liberty by disciplining them to
an habitual acquaintance with its forms. Political in-
stitution* is undoubtedly susceptible of such improve-
ments as no rational person can consider possible, so
long as the present degraded condition to which the
vital imperfections in the existing system of govern-
ment has reduced the vast multitude of men, shall
subsist. The securest method of arriving at such
beneficial innovations, is to proceed gradually and
with caution ; or in the place of that order and free-

_in i

* Shelley uses the same phrase in the second Irish pamphlet,
the Proposals. See p. 2/1.

378 PERCY BYSSBE SHELLEY.

dom which the Friends of Reform assert to be violated
now, anarchy and despotism will follow. Annual
Parliaments have my entire assent. I will not state
those general reasonings in their favour which Mr.
Cohhett and other writers have already made familiar
to the public mind.

With respect to Universal Suffrage, I confess I
consider its adoption, in the present unprepared state
of public knowledge and feeling, a measure fraught
with peril. I think that none but those who register
their names as paying a certain small sum in direct
taxes ought at present to send Members to Parlia-
ment. The consequences of the immediate extension
of the elective franchise to every male adult, would
be to place power in the hands of men who have been
rendered brumal and torpid and ferocious by ages of
slavery. It is to suppose that the qualities belonging
to a demagogue are such as are sufficient to endow a
legislator. I allow Major Cartwright's arguments to
be unanswerable ; abstractedly it is the right of every
human being to have a share in the government. But
Mr. Paine's arguments are also unanswerable ; a pure
republic may be shown, by inferences the most obvious
and irresistible, to be that system of social order the
fittest to produce the happiness and promote the
genuine eminence of man. Yet nothing can less
consist with reason, or afford smaller hopes of any
beneficial issue, than the plan which should abolish
the regal and the aristocratical branches of our con-
stitution, before the public mind, through many gra-
dations of improvement, shall have arrived at the
maturity which can disregard these symbols of its
childhood.

l«0lfo

fo')

"WE PITY THE PLUMAGE, BUT FORGET
THE DYING BIRD."

'
-nil

AN

.

ADDRESS TO THE PEOPLE

•J -r il , 7 f'*/i:fa

ol tirii- ' «!«)M> OTB Of'lj

' T i\lll£ 7/'i)fffi I

usit-jff/j , f oH

J7^ Death of the Princess Charlotte.

t-'.r 7tf tiJ7/nif^ M{ Tirn >i !>!«>((•>'?

>/ tiuit r»(F ot t-)lditi'i/'rrr! r)ua

^ilt lioraoiq ' .rU. uf ot f.-vt'i

f i / BY

/(iJ5 *)o -aoo

^^ permit of JJtolofo.

_ — 0,l^

torn

AN ADDRESS, &c.

I. THE Princess Charlotte is dead. She no longer
moves, nor thinks, nor feels. She is as inani-
mate as the clay with which she is about to mingle.
It is a dreadful thing to know that she is a putrid
corpse, who but a few days since was full of life
and hope ; a woman young, innocent, and beautiful,
snatched from the bosom of domestic peace, and
leaving that single vacancy which none can die and
leave not.

II. Thus much the death of the Princess Charlotte
has in common with the death of thousands. How
many women die in childbed and leave their fami-
lies of motherless children and their husbands to
live on, blighted by the remembrance of that heavy
loss ? How many women of active and energetic
virtues; mild, affectionate, and wise, whose life is
as a chain of happiness and union, which once being
broken, leaves those whom it bound to perish, have
died, and have been deplored with bitterness, which
is too deep for words ? Some have perished in
penury or shame, and their orphan baby has sur-
vived, a prey to the scorn and neglect of strangers.
Men have watched by the bedside of their expiring
wives, and have gone mad when the hideous death-

382 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

rattle was heard within the throat, regardless of the
rosy child sleeping in the lap of the unobservant
nurse. The countenance of the physician had been
read by the stare of this distracted husband, till the
legible despair sunk into his heart. All this has been
and is. You walk with a merry heart through the
streets of this great city, and think not that such
are the scenes acting all around you. You do not
number in your thought the mothers who die in
childbed. It is the most horrible of ruins : — In
sickness, in old age, in battle, death comes as to his
own home ; but in the season of joy and hope, when
life should succeed to life, and the assembled family
expects one more, the youngest and the best be-
loved, that the wife, the mother — she for whom
each member of the family was so dear to one
another, should die ! — Yet thousands of the poorest
poor, whose misery is aggravated by what cannot
be spoken now, suffer this. And have they no affec-
tions ? Do not their hearts beat in their bosoms,
and the tears gush from their eyes ? Are they not
human flesh and blood ? Yet none weep for them —
none mourn for them — none when their coffins are
carried to the grave (if indeed the parish furnishes
a coffin for all) turn aside and moralize upon the
sadness they have left behind.

III. The Athenians did well to celebrate, with
public mourning, the death of those who had guided
the republic with their valour and their understand-
ing, or illustrated it with their genius. Men do well
to mourn for the dead : it proves that we love some-
thing beside ourselves ; and he must have a hard
heart who can see his friend depart to rottenness and

WE PITY THE PLUMAGE. 383

dust, and speed him without emotion on his voyage
to " that bourne whence no traveller returns." To
lament for those who have benefited the State, is a
habit of piety yet more favourable to the cultivation
of our best affections. When Milton died it had
been well that the universal English nation had been
clothed in solemn black, and that the muffled bells
had tolled from town to town. The French nation
should have enjoined a public mourning at the deaths
of Rousseau and Voltaire. We cannot truly grieve
for every one who dies beyond the circle of those
especially dear to us ; yet in the extinction of the
objects of public love and admiration, and gratitude,
there is something, if we enjoy a liberal mind, which
has departed from within that circle. It were well
done also, that men should mourn for any public
calamity which has befallen their country or the
world, though it be not death. This helps to main-
tain that connexion between one man and another,
and all men considered as a whole, which is the bond
of social life. There should be public mourning
when those events take place which make all good
men mourn in their hearts, — the rule of foreign or
domestic tyrants, the abuse of public faith, the wrest-
ing of old and venerable laws to the murder of the
innocent, the established insecurity of all those, the
flower of the nation, who cherish an unconquerable
enthusiasm for public good. Thus, if Home Tooke
and Hardy had been convicted of high treason, it
had been good that there had been not only the
sorrow and the indignation which would have filled
all hearts, but the external symbols of grief. When
the French Republic was extinguished, the world
ought to have mourned.

m f any

ottj '?rca&t0> a<^}Uflftdequate objects, .:; those >,
'streams of, sympathy, which a public mourning should
J^th&j^^tan®Sl pouring, ;&)ptk> , .fftol-soleap^nity
jsliftuW be ; used only to express a wide and intel-
4igibte.jcalamityj.aud pne which is felt to be such
by those who feel for their couatiy.-^^B^i.tfiWfir
kind ; its character ought to be universal, not par-
lt'Tibnirffl lo norhnoza 9ffT ,1V

lJ. ('» )it'VI jfllli JF] r>i{ffp lo ifl^VO 015 81

. The news of the death of the, Princess
,of< the execution ;, of Br^

arrived nearly at the same time. If beauty^
: youth, innocen.ce, .amiable manners, and the exer-
the domestic virtues : could alone justify public
wheftr-t^y are /-extinguished for ever,* this ($#
tereating Lady would well deserve that exhibition.
She was the last and the best of her race. But there
1-Wjere thousands of others equally distinguished as she,
|fe .private excellences,, who have been cut, offtin
youth and hope, , The j accident , $£ ^er, . birih
made her . laf e more virtuous , ;npr -her , .deat

of ; grief, For ;t}ie : public she .had done nothing
good or evil ; her education had rendered her
iinpapable of^ , ei^er & •• a 1 arge and cpmprehensiye
^he, wa,s, born a princess j and those , who, &fp
^Qir^ fliajiliin^ are Dispensed with acquir-
that; wisidom and that experience which ift,n(ece;s^
sary even to rule themselves.; She was not like Lady
Jane Grey, or Queen Elizabeth, a woman of profound
and ; varioujs ^^arning? She had accomplished no-
thi#g, and, aspired to nothing, and could understand
nothing respecting those great political questions

EVT FORGET THE DYING BIRD. 385

which involve the happiness of those over whom she
was destined to rule. Yet this should not be said in
blame, but in compassion : let us speak no evil of the
dead. Such is the misery, such the impotence of
royalty — Princes are prevented from the cradle from
becoming anything which may deserve that greatest
of all rewards next to a good conscience, public ad-
miration and regret.

VI. The execution of Brandreth, Ludlam, and
Turner is an event of quite a different character
from the death of the Princess Charlotte. These
men were shut up in a horrible dungeon for many
months, with the fear of a hideous death and of
everlasting hell thrust before their eyes ; and at last
were brought to the scaffold and hung. They too
had domestic affections, and were remarkable for the
exercise of private virtues. Perhaps their low station
permitted the growth of those affections in a degree
not consistent with a more exalted rank. They had
sons, and brothers, and sisters, and fathers, who loved
them, it should seem, more than the Princess Char-
lotte could be loved by those whom the regulations of
her rank had held in perpetual estrangement from
her. Her husband was to her as father, mother, and
brethren. Ludlam and Turner were men of mature
years, and the affections were ripened and strength-
ened within them. What these sufferers felt shall not
be said. But what must have been the long and
various agony of their kindred may be inferred from
Edward Turner, who, when he saw his brother dragged
along upon the hurdle, shrieked horribly and fell in a
fit, and was carried away like a corpse by two men.
How fearful must have been their agony, sitting in

c c

.solitude Q.H t$iat day wjieu. ..the, tempestuous vjqioe of
NOTICE frpmi , the crow^, told , them , ..that the Imd , so
(}ear to , them was severed from the body ,!
they listened to the maddening shriek which t
from the multitude: they heard the, rush ; of tjen
thousand terror-stricken feet, .the groans and the
hootings.w.hich told them that. the mangled and dis-
torted head was then lifted into the air. The sufferers
were dead,. What is death? Who dares to say that
wjiich, will.; come after the grave ?* Brandreth was
calm, and evidently believed that the consequences
of our errors were limited by that tremendous barrier.
Ludlam and Turner were full of fears, lest God should
plunge them, iu everlasting fire. Mr. Pickering, the
clergyman, was evidently anxious that . Brandreth
should not by a false confidence lose the single op-
portunity of reconciling himself with the Huler of the
future world. None knew what death was, or could
know. Yet these men were presumptuously thrust
into that unfathomable gulf, by other men, who knew
as little and who reckoned not the present or the
future sufferings of their victims. Nothing is more
horrible than that man should for any cause shed the
life of man. For all other calamities there is a remedy
or a consolation. When that Power through which
we live ceases to maintain the life which it has con-
ferred, then is grief and agony, and the burthen which
must be borne : such sorrow improves the heart. But
when man sheds the blood of man, revenge, and hatred,
and a long train of executions, and assassinations, and
proscriptions, is. perpetuated to remotest time.

* " Your death has eyes in his head — mine is not painted so.

WE PITY THE PLUM A QE, 387

VII. Such are the particular, and some of the
general considerations depending on the death of these
men. But however deplorable, if it were a mere

'private or customary grief, the public as the public
should not mourn. But it is more than this. The
events which led to the death of those unfortunate
men are a public calamity. I will not impute blame
to the jury who pronounced them guilty of high
treason, perhaps the law requires that such should be
the denomination of their offence. Some restraint
ought indeed to be imposed on those thoughtless men
who imagine they can find in violence a remedy for
violence, even if their oppressors had tempted them to
this occasion of their ruin. They are instruments of
evil, not so guilty as the hands that wielded them,
but fit to inspire caution. But their death, by hang-
ing and beheading, and the circumstances of which it
is the characteristic and the consequence, constitute a
calamity such as the English nation ought to mourn
with an unassuageable grief.

VIII. Kings and their ministers have in every age
been distinguished from other men by a thirst for ex-
penditure and bloodshed. There existed in this country,
until the American war, a check, sufficiently feeble and
pliant indeed, to this desolating propensity. Until
America proclaimed itself a Republic, England was
perhaps the freest and most glorious nation subsisting
on the surface of the earth. It was not what is to
the full desirable that a nation should be, but all that
it can be, when it does not govern itself. The conse-
quences, however, of that fundamental defect soon
became evident. The government which the imper-
fect constitution of our representative assembly threw

C C 2

fewds^bf aftlfe^ o&fcfo®ii*,td,
ittfcttfed ^iteierpatenV tl^«-ttt»
f he^ minister^ of ' Wift Jarnj I(Hi.yni$til #n I&tafta&cftis1 debt
Jlrf^ifen^afjJ-kgaifiist the Republic
ftMs poM^f wa$ ^411 Awdd^tipi/x until i *tto^i 1 1jhre
(in$<*resft of tiy p'tt'bii c debt stikMii ts f tor sinore
as iriucli as the lavish expenditure of thte

ainiii^ 4he stawditsig 'aJpmyy and
family, and the peridoiiersy &nd jtiie ^p
The ^effedt'of this debt is to prbduce" snch'^n

d&tioft »f sbcial union and
double aristocracy, instead of-oue1
feientl^ burth en som e befo re, etiid
people the liberty of living in luxrirv and idleness O^L
the produce of the industrious and the poor. And it
doeSf liot give theffi this because :4hey?i are '«*o»e trifefe
and meritorious than the rest, <DI* because their leisure
is spent in schemes of public good, or in those exercises
bf the intellect and the imagination^ whose creations
ennoble or adorn a country. They are not like the
old aristocracy, men of pride and honour, ganapeur-et
Sdristachb, but petty peddling slaves who hate gainedia
tight to the title of public creditors, either by gambling
in the funds, or by subserviency to government, or
•dome other villainous trade. They are not the " Co-
rinthian capital of polished society/'' but the petty and
creeping weeds which deface the rich tracery of its
sculpture; The effect of this system is, that the day
labourer gains no more now by working sixteen hours
a day than he gained before by working eight. I put
the thing in its simplest and most intelligible shape.
The Mourery he that tills the ground and manufac-
tures cloth, is the man who has to provide, out of

389
Jwrj##)k0ifte totfhig "frife

pcovoke

freedom, and<jtbe(tcbiy.

33itf satoi,otott^yibg ;«»: the brink of two

began to be weary of a eoatinuance of sucli dangers

.an<irdegraxiatjions; and the miseries winch are the

, It began to, be

itself dares to touch the question as to whether there
is any remedy or no to the annual payment, of forty -

,-fof octoijcfen^Y jfoco^^Jllrti [<Af
?\vent abroad, and the, love of liberty, and patriotism,

orf flBfl
r leorrr bae teofqmia ?-Jr rri giiirfj

PEROT BrSSTW!

otiseqti6ti^ 6f that
aristocracy produced by the Cause's bfcfote' mentioned1. r
Thfc manufacturers, the helots1 of our luxury, are left'
by this system famished, without aflfectkmr, Without
health, without leisure or opportunity for -such rrtsfcrttc-^
tibn as might counteract those habits 'of
and dissipation, produced by th'e1 precariou^riess
insecurity of poverty. H'cre was a ready field for any
adventurer who should wish for ! 'whatever" pTn*p6se:'t0
incite a few ignorant men to acts of illegal outrage^
So soon as it was plainly seen that the demands !of the5
people for a free representation must be cbnceded1 itf
some intimidation and prejudice were not conjured u$j'
a conspiracy of the most horrible atrocity was laid in
train. It is impossible to know how far the highef!
members of the government are involved in the guilt
of their infernal agents. It is impossible to know how
numerous or how active they have been, or by what
false hopes they arc yet inflaming the untutored mul-
titude to put their necks under the axe and into the
halter. Hut thus much is known, that so soon as the
whole nation lifted up its voice for parliamentary re-
form, spies were sent forth. These were selected from
the most worthless and infamous of mankind, and dis-
persed among the multitude of famished and illiterate
labourers. It was their business if they found no
discontent to create it. It was their business to find
victims, no matter whether right or wrong, It was
their business to produce upon the public an impres-
sion, that if any attempt to attain national freedom, or
to diminish the burthens of debt and taxation under
which we groan, were successful, the starving multi-
tude; would rush in, and confound all orders and dis-
tinctions, and institutions and laws, in common ruin.

WE PITY THE PLUMAGE, 391

The inference with which they were required
the ministers was, that despotic power ought to be
eternal. To produce this salutary impres$io$a£!th,e{yj
betrayed some innocent and unsuspecting rustics into
a crime whose penalty is a hideous death. A few
hungry and ignorant manufacturers, seduced by the
splendid promises of these remorseless blood-conspira-
tors, collected together in what is called rfGlpeUjpu,
against the State. All was prepared, and the eighteen
dragoons assembled in readiness, no doubt, eonducite.^
t^eir astonished victims to that dungeon which thej,
left only to be mangled by the, executioner's hand.
The cruel instigators of their ruin retired to enjoy the
great revenues which they had earned by a life of vil-
lany. The public voice was overpowered by the timipl
arid the selfish, who threw the weight of fear into t^e
scale of public opinion, and Parliament confided anew
to the executive government those extraordinary
powers which may never be laid down, or which may
be laid down in blood, or which the regularly consti-
tuted assembly of the nation must wrest out of their
hands. Our alternatives are a despotism, a revolution,
or reform.

•>]>

X. On the 7th of November, Brandreth, Turner,
and Ludlam ascended the scaffold. We feel for Bran*
dreth the less, because it seems he killed a man.
But recollect who instigated him to the proceedings
which led to murder. On the word of a dying man,
Brandreth tells us, that " OLIVER brought him to this"
— that, " but for OLIVER he would not have been
there." See, too, Ludlam and Turner, with their
sons, and brothers, and sisters, how they kneel toge-
ther in a dreadful agony of prayer. Hell is before

tlicir eyes, and they shudder and feel sick with fear,

Jest; s#me j^^fp^t^n^i^^

Jhe^ ,t doom , , jija. , . e/yeiflapjtifag i i&Qb ; Witf* «

jena^ Jjefjtfls, .$^$7 A^rw|l
tion for the truth of all he spoke, Turner
loudly and distinctly, while the executioner was putting

he might haver

low not, because the chaplain prevented
s^rv^fcions.,, , , Troops ,of horse,, with . keeb
ing swords, hemmed in the multitudes
witness this abominable exhibition. ... " Wtai ithie
stroke of ,the a,fe was, heard, there was, , & tburstmdf
horror from the crowd.* < The instant;, the head<wais
exhibited, there was a tremendous shriek set up, and
|jje multitude rau violently. jn; all directions; >aa M
under the impulse of sudden fren?y. Those who re*
sumed their stations, groaned and hooted/*! .-,, Ijti
national calamity, that wse , endure ; > men. . to j?ule
us, who sanction for whatever ends, a conspiracy whick
j^ t9 . arrive at its purpose through such a irightfui
pouring forth of human blood and agony. But when
that purpose is to trample upon pur rights and liberties
for ever, to present to us the alternatives of anarch^
and oppression, and triumph; when the astonished
nation accepts the latter at their hands, to maintain
avast standing army, and add year by .year to a
public debt, which already, they know,, cannot ;be dis^
charged ; and which, when the delusion that supports
it fails, will produce as much misery and confusion
through all classes^ o£j society .as, iti;ihass; f continued to

.t.-iTi ,o ni. jjj-.)-ui ovom

* Thes^ exprese^ionte are taken from The Examiner, Sunday,

393

Adduce of famine and degradatio^ofe undefeifflfe
Lpoorj to imprison and calumniate those who may
offend them at will; when' this, if not the purpose, is
the effect of that conspiracy, how ought we noH0!Jo

,t»ioqg oil i

m^ sM »U*V>M t\rUi>£ibaib buis vlbuol

. Monrn then people of England. Clothe your-
selves in solemn black. Let the bells be tolled. Think
of mortality and change. Shroud yourselves" W ttfflf-
tude and the gloom of sacred sorrow. Spare^b
symbol of universal grief. Weep— mourri— -lameMt.
Fill the great city — fill the boundless fields, with
lamentation and the echo of groans. A beautiful
Princess is dead: — she who should have been the
Queen of her beloved nation, and whose posterity
should have ruled it for ever. She loved the domestic
affections, and cherished arts which adorn, and valour
which defends. She was amiable and would have be-
come wise, but she was young, and in the flower of
youth the destroyer came. LIBERTY is dead. Slave !
I charge thee disturb not the depth and solemnity of
our grief by any meaner sorrow. If One has died
who was like her that should have ruled over this
land, like Liberty, young, innocent, and lovely, know
that the power through which that one perished was
God, and that it was a private grief. But man has
murdered Liberty, and whilst the life was ebbing from
its wound, there descended on the heads and on the
hearts of every human thing, the sympathy of an
universal blast and curse. Ectters heavier than iron
weigh upon us, because they bind our souls. We
move about in a dungeon more pestilential than damp
and narrow wails, because the earth is its floor and
the heavens are its roof. Let us follow the corpse of

394 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

British Liberty slowly and reverentially to its tomb :
and if some glorious Phantom should appear, and
make its throne of broken swords and sceptres and
royal crowns trampled in the dust, let us say that the
Spirit of Liberty hasf *ajris£n frbjta <it$ grave and left
all that was gross and mortal there, and kneel down
and worship it as our Queen.

I Mir MT./.J 5TTIT"

FINIS.

'

. %'tfr
/if/I

I

*** Whence Shelley derived the curious title of
this pamphlet, " We pity the plumage, but forget the
dying bird," has not previously been pointed out. It
is possible that he found it in the first number of 'The
Reflector, which appeared in October, 1810, the month
of his matriculation at Oxford. The Reflector was a
quarterly magazine, edited by Leigh Hunt, of which
I have two volumes, to December, 1 8 1 1 . The original
passage will probably be found in one of Paine's tracts,
of which, since I alluded to them at page 1 34, I have
recently seen a Dublin edition.

ce It was pertinently said of the pathetic language
which Mr. Burke, in his later writings, occasionally
held on constitutional topics, that he pitied the plumage,
but neglected the wounded and suffering bird." — The
Reflector, vol. i. p. 17.

••: dmctf ?ir ot ^IlBiJmmToi Ln« yjwof* TtiomJ
bun t*njoqqn Blirod?. nif nohol^ wm-a *)i

bfltt 89fltqO')8 Bflfi glriOWa JD/kmf lo OHO'ilIt *J! ()/fi5£R

jjdi >tmft '(r,3 m iol ,i*u[) orft JM Lolqi.'!-
jV>f hn/j oviJV.j^Fp P E N D I X.

b I-jofijf IHI/J toiodi krioffi f)ffc K- i !l/j

No. I.

"THE LATE ME. PINNEBTF."

j*] ;,-

From the Morning Chronicle, May i$th, 1822.

IT is with no ordinary regret that we announce the
death of Mr. Peter Finnerty, twenty years a Parlia-
mentary reporter on this journal. For some time his
health had been on the decline, but always solicitous to
perform his duties, it was only within -the last month that
the violence of his complaint compelled him to withdraw
himself from the more active duties of his situation.

" Mr. Pinnerty, from the strength of his mind and the
warmth of his feelings, has either so acted or suffered in the
public events of his country that such a man ought not to
be allowed to descend to his grave as a common individual.
He was the son of a tradesman in the town of Loughrea, in
the county of Galway, who with slender means had reared
and educated a numerous family. Mr. Finnerty, the eldest
son, was in early age cast upon his fortunes in the metro-
polis of Ireland ; brought up a printer, he, at the awful
crisis of 1798, succeeded [preceded] Mr. Arthur O'Connor
as the [registered! printer of the most popular and ably
conducted paper which ever appeared in that country —
The Press. Such a situation naturally brought Mr. Fin-
nerty into perilous contact with the irritated and coercive
Government of that day. It was no ordinary predicament
in which so young a man, being then scarcely of age, was
placed. Under the process of the laws as then administered
in Ireland, he was visited with all the penalties of a vin-

33$

the/tfabjioui* -D&'being deffetideid >fyy xMJrd
e whose VjpowfersjiQseciw&titf jbhe demands oOhis' *toiitttirp
mH w<hoi>seeraed to iHave been

tdithe great -but dangerous distinction of displaying taletJ
ia 'defence lof -virtue commensurate i ta 'tbe
had called them 'forth. In tihat; «ourt he charged'
Qbosrei'nnieBt ,o£ 4hi>te >day3'wiik^a viih dictivei ^\iarjfere a
ifcte bnly ppinter? wta-. >daredt i sto -. \^hispe
Iceland. Mir* Emnerfcyrj^aai'Ssenteinctld t©J i^ ipt
mOr® ignominious to* the. law than to the«rithitial, but;;hkd
the honour of beutgiatfcended by {Lord Edwardi Fitzgerald
and many other public characters. > The sentence \^as ;elx.t»
outed also under the: bayonets of ia large military force, b«t
coilld not repress that bucst of popular ay in|)atitiy)whie)la(
attended the first address that he "ever made to his sufFei«lflg
cosintrymen. Hie passed tfrose dreadful years 'of '98 a/nd;'^
iairthe prison oi' Newgate, Dublin, when too freqaen^lp
tte' guest of the ^ breakfast- table, as he himself has ofteii
described, was hurried forth to sudden execution. • 'SueW
Wfts the persecution \rith which he had io: contend in
consequence of the subyersibn of his establishment, ib&k
he rernained for months unemployed before ih& could obtairi
9* passport tbr England 1 Arrived in I^ondon, lie entea£e&
into; aai engagement on the press, aitd ^commenced iParlial
ttientary reporter. The faithful and able manner in whit*ht
be discharged the important duties of i such a truslj i« wM
known to all who have had any connexion with the press*
pfo^he metropcrlis. 'Having professionally; attended 'fcbe
eouirt;T martial which was held at P0rtsmil)ttth^.;he ; 'became
acquainted with Sir Home Popham, and an intimacy com-
menced which terminated only by his death.* "W hen the
eipedition to WMcheren 'took place, Mr. Finnert?, jdt *the

»noo mm- ,7 Kl! "to aJivfibffi^ knr^no orfj »iJfW ,'{i;wpru euoniJ5 ^197 tins

A copy of The Trial of Sir Home Popham, probably edited by Peter
, is in'^tlie Liondon Institution, Finsbury Circus. A Memoir of
iggaOPpphaBoe & gi?ea itf^ Public \ VharMters of 1806,
London, 1806, p. 399.

?e*|uesfe of Sir Horn e; sailed with Caprtain Bartholomew^
from Woolwich for the avowed purpose of writing thw
history of that expedition. An order had, however, been
okfcttlated through the squadron in the Downs to send
MfiiJFinnerty on shore if found on board this fleet. -'(This
Qffder was ineffectual, as Mr. Eimierty, unaware of its
eixistenee, had arrived at Walcheren, and on being iiiiade
acquainted with it, immediately waited upon the naval
Commander-in-chief. He was received with great kind-
ness, and after a delay of some weeks, he returned to Eng^-
laud in a frigate. Under the irritation of fee-lings natu*
rally excited by such a strange exercise of authority, he
addressed, through this paper, a letter to a noble member
of >th@i Administration! who held a conspicuous place in the
recent and melancholy history of Ireland. That noble
person immediately commenced a prosecution against the
publisher of this journal. Mr. Finnerty, who had been
frequently warned by the late Mr. Perry as to the conse-
quences which would result from the publication of the
letter, with the frankness and decision of character which
belonged to him, immediately requested that the manu^
script should be given up, that the prosecution might
affect only the real author. He allowed judgment to go
by default ; but on being brought lip for judgment, he
defended the libel on the ground of the provocations which
he had received, as well as the truth of his allegations,
which he was then prepared with affidavits to sustain. He
was sentenced to a long term of imprisonment, that was so
rigorously carried into effect, that his constitution received
a shock from which it never recovered. "While in prison,
by an appeal to Parliament he procured an inquiry,* the

QflJ null // UJI.JD Bill •'<• yuio jj'jjJJiiiiiri'JJ irjju/v WJ-JU-JMI

* It may perhaps be interesting to mention, that the whole report on
this very curious inquiry, with the original affidavits of the parties con-
cerned, is preserved in the Record Office. (Domestic, George III.,
January to March, i8ri. No. 226.) The original petition to the
Prince Regent, signed in the remarkable autograph of Peter Finnerty,
is in the collection of papers, No. 227. Domestic, Geo. III., April to
May, i8n. See also p. 93 of this volume. ,QQ£ ,q <0

result of Vhich not dntyle'd to a i
ferings, but 'to 'the general amelioration of the prison dis
cipline. On his liberation, he resumed his duties wit'h
this paper. His mind, naturally strong and original, was
invigorated by an experience of the world that enabled
him, with no common acuteness, to perceive both the subr-
stance and form of truth, and detect the sophistries of the
most specious imposition. He had a natural eloquence of
a vivid and masculine character, and his colloquial powers
were peculiar and fascinating. But his leading charac-
teristic was an instinctive hatred of oppression whatever
shape it assumed, or by whatever influence it was attempted
to be enforced. We will mention one instance. In the
recent State Trials Mr. Finnerty was the individual who
first discovered that the infamous Thomas Reynolds, per-
sonally unknown to his brother-jurors, was actually a
member of the grand jury of the metropolitan court of
England. No sooner was the fact ascertained, and pend-
ing the trials in Westminster Hall, than he communicated
the circumstance to a member of the House of Commons,
who in consequence made a disclosure, the electric effect
of which upon the House was only equalled by the indigna-
tion that it excited throughout the country.

" From the original information of his mind, his un-
bending devotedness to the interests of his country, and
hatred of its oppressors, he had drawn upon himself much
political hostility ; but for that he was highly compensated
by having the good fortune to enjoy the proud distinction
of being known to Mr. Fox, Mr. Whitbread, and Sir
Samuel Eomilly, and of having as his personal and inti-
mate friends Mr. Curran, Mr. Sheridan, and Mr. Grattan,
as well as some of the most eminent public men now
living. Having made this plain and simple statement, we
have only to add that while the memory of Mr. Finnerty
is identified with the history of his country, it will long be
cherished by those associates, who having had the best
opportunity of knowing his good qualities, have the most
reason to deplore iiim."

The respect thus entertained for Mr. Finnerty by those

APPENDIX* 399

who best knew him, seems to have been shared even by
Lord Castlereagh himself. The Examiner, August 26th,
1822, p. 533, in an article on the unhappy suicide of that
nobleman has the following passage : —

" The Tyne Mercury says, ' The late Mr. Finnerty, who
was for many years at known declared and active enmity
with the Marquis of Londonderry, has often mentioned to
us that his lordship was accustomed to low to him as he

passed him.' "
r

Mr. Finnerty died on the nth of May, 1824, at West-
minster. In the affidavits prefixed to the report of his
trial in 181 1, he is described as Peter Finnerty, of Clement's
Inn, in the county of Middlesex, gentleman. His age at
the time of his death is stated by some writers to have been
fifty-six years ; but this must be a mistake. In his letter to
The Morning Chronicle, published in that journal Tuesday,
January 23rd, 1810, which was the alleged libel for which
he suffered his second imprisonment, he has the following
passage referring to the period subsequent to the expiration
of his sentence at the end of J 799, when he sought for a
passport to go into England, and was refused : —

" What will the public think of Castlereagh's feelings,
when I state that at the period of which I ain writing I
was not twenty-one years of age ?"

At the time of his death therefore, in 1822, Mr. Fin-
nerty was only forty three years old.

Twelve years before Percy Bysshe Shelley conferred
upon Peter Finnerty the honour of publishing a poem for
his benefit, the following lines appeared in the 43rd No.
of The Press, January 6th, 1798. With this earty tribute
to his worth, we may take our leave of a man who is likely
to obtain a new lease of fame from the singular connexion
with Shelley, which it has been the good fortune of the
present writer to discover, and his anxious effort to explain
to the best of his ability in this book : —

oi

»rl-t nt iinflid "rennol eni uood anivBfl todl thnfiio2il9xl

« ' Array' d in virtue, and in freedom's cause,

What honest breast but pays to thee applause ?
Who thee 'beholds, a'tnkl a dungeon's gloom,

t \d ^gp^^fegrioAspjitesi dpot&W'r a77

Sioteiorfi ?fIJWho, but, id sorrow, lie&veVthe' pitying ^t^P?110^
1(98 oi bttjJiT^icthy to-fcicknefc^ ot— perhaps to die |;')fl 797910

i91CO'Jf oriy^ttr^^-1' superior to the empty great t.-J Juo baS bflB
A grateful raqe shall homage pay to thee, , .

oild JbflB fl'-B0^.^^ un(^auntedfl^en^Vf!]CS^«J 9d jihim Ji

Thp' juries trimnph, judges judgment give, . ,

In honour's records thou shalt ever live. -r 3J

January 6th, 1798." ' Extracts frorn TIte Press,

Philadelphia, 1802, p.

,AHJOl/I

No. II.

l;

-he following correspondence between the- Earl pf
aiid the Eight Honourable Eichard Ryder, Secretary of:
State for the, Ilonie Department,, is,. extracted from, the'
Collection of State Papers in the Becord Office, labelled
"'Domestic, 0eorge JII. l8ii, JSTq, 231." The ori-
ginal .Jetters are endorsed by Mr, Byder, ";27th October,

1811. Lord Moira and Mr, Lawless/'
Qfnij 9iiJ Isnura noinY/ ra« !i jiTBnrTorni Tuov^ ^o D9aoun9in

Tliefiarl ofMoirct to the Eight Honourable Richard Ruder.

bid 10 .dfloi/pe-ii oi baeoqaiia sd^fP §fl 8^°?Ii?1"J J° «9Cl

"Donmgton, Oct. •27th, 1811.

larJioHw nwoid -i3Bl eiij ngvo 10 ^OTW^IrOT T0R) nfewsq
aMz DEAE SIB,— A Mr. Lawless, brother to an officer
of high rank in .Bonaparte's army, left Ireland secretly last
year and went tq Paris ; about a month ago he returned
privately to Dublin, and took care to be as little seen as
possible. He has just now quitted Ireland in the same
mysterious way, and as he took that route, very probajijjyfrj
still in London. Tifirniit did not obtain the know-

ledge of this in due <time. I am not at liberty to disclose
from whom I n

nave the communicatiott,
a a

upon its accuracy. Lasrless's .object is probably to get to
Heligoland, that having been his former track to the
Continent. The arresting him would not be likely to lead
to any discovery. But if you could make hjm out, there
would be a chance of getting at his business* by fixing a
spy upon him. He is a shallow, incautious roan, therefore
any clever person pretending to go to Heligoland to sell
guineas, might; worm himself into Lawless's- confidence,
and find out to whom in Ireland he has been the bearer of
messages or letters. Great secrecy must be observed or
it might be traced how I got the information, and the
source is one which it is important to preserve.

.

,8* .qco8i obedient

and humble servant,

" MOIRA.
"The Right Hon. B. Ryder, &c."

II

The Right

"Private. "Whitehall, Oct. 3ist, 1811.

« MY BEAU LOED -I am much obliged to your Lordship
for your communication upon the subject of Mr. Lawless.
I have since taken all the steps in my power to ascertain
when such a person embarks for Heligoland, if he should
take that route, with a view to any ulterior measures that
may be thought advisable ; but no circumstances being
mentioned by your informant from which either the time
of his arrival here, or the part of the town where he may
be, or the places he may be supposed to frequent, or his
person can be described, or even the fact known whether
he is in London or not can be learnt, I much doubt, after
the inquiries I have made, whether there are any [means]
except the chances of accident to take advantage of his
information." [The remainder of the letter' is taken up

with the case of a certain " William Richmond," and con-
cluflyjcfuiqv-io/^Juo-

> *f Taa]w/&vfl:

"EICHABD RYDEB.

btt 1%o Earl erf Mo^^«*oiJ^oifli]raia<j3 di

D D

havebeten

tknf by th6 Eiirl of Moira, the description certainly is not
•fla^teringl It is one, however, that might •: easily ; be drawn
frWi the hostile allusions to Mr. Ldwless in the satirical
publications of the day. These attacks commenced with
*he Eight Honourable John Wilson Croker, in his Familiar
Epistles, and culminated in the scurrility of Dr. Brenan, in
The Milesian, and Watty Cor, in the Irish Magazine. A
•Certain -airiness., not' to say fiightiness, of manner was
always very unfairly seized on by Mr. Lawless's enemies
as a point of attack. An instance of this occurred so late
mis 1821, on the occasion of Grebrge IV.'a visit to Ireland.
it's It appears," says a journal of the period, "by a letter
from Mr. John Lawless, of The Irishman, published in >k
Contemporary print, that that gentleman did not leap inft>
the sea to shake hands with his Majesty, as stated in one
of the papers —

" Jack Lawless says it was not he

Clung to the Hoyal Boat,
Yet surely wonder should not be

That things BO light should float."

There is, however, a slight difficulty in identifying witti
absolute certainty the " Mr. Lawless" of Lord Moira's
letter with John Lawless. This arises from the fact that
the latter had two relatives who were " officers in Bona-
parte's army." One was his uncle and one his brother.
In the Memoirs of Miles Byrne, Chef de Bataillon in the
service of France, Officer of the Legion of Honour, KnigJit
of St. Louis, fyc., Paris, 1836, we have a good account of
both. Of the two, his uncle attained the higher rank.
At the battle of Lowenberg, in Silesia, on the 1 9th of
August, 1813, Colonel Lawless commanded the Irish
Regiment. " On the 2 1st of August, the second day
after," says Miles Byrne, " Colonel Lawless, at the passage
of the Bober, at the town of Lowenberg, and in the pre-
sence of Napoleon, had his leg shot off by a cannon ball "
(torn. iii. p. 36). Colonel Lawless was subsequently
made Greneral, and died on the 25th of December, 1824.

The phrase " an officer of high rank in the army of

Bonaparte," would of course apply especially- to Colonel
Lawless ; but I do not find any allusion to a brother of his
residing in Dublin at the period mentioned. The officer
referred to by Lord Moira must, I think, have been Luke
Lawless, the brother of John Lawless. He too held a
commission in the French service, but of inferior rank to
his uncle. Colonel Miles Byrne devotes several pages ;.V>
him in his Memoirs. He was a Lieutenant and subse-
quently Captain on the Staff of the Duke of Feltre. After
the downfall of Napoleon, in 1815, the Irish Regiment
was disbanded, and Captain Lawless with other officers
emigrated to America. He resumed his profession as an
advocate, greatly distinguished himself at the American
bar, and was eventually raised to the rank of Judge at
Saint Louis. — See Memoirs of Miles Byrne, t. iii. pp. 97,
98.

As there is nothing further on this affair of " Mr. Law-
less" in the State Papers, Lord Moira perhaps soon disco-
vered that his informant's zeal had outrun his discretion
in the officious communication he had made to him. Mr.
John Lawless, if he was the person alluded to, had pro-
bably gone to Loudon on private business, and returned
shortly after, as we find him in Dublin at the end of
February, 1812, the associate of Shelley. The reply of
the Eight Honourable Bichard Byder to Lord Moira's
letter is studiously polite, but unmistakably satirical.
"Poor Lord Moira," says Moore in one of his letters,
when he began to perceive that his noble patron* was

oira seems to^have played the amiableVpart df patron-
to young poets and romance writers, before he accepted the more 3tfb-
stantial position of Governor-General of India. In 1804 we find
"Monk" Lewis dedicating to him The Bravo of Venice — a singular
offering to a statesman. A copy of this curious book, presented "with
Mr. Lewis' compliments" to one of his friends is in my possession. It
seems to have been the model on which Shelley constructed his not
more absurd Romances of Zastrozzi and St. Irvyne. Monk Lewis seems
to have been as fond of the letter Z as Shelley himself. We have
Parozzi, Struzza, and Baluzzo — names that may well pair with the
Zaxtrozzi and Verezzi of his imitator. > XIC " 9££ldq (JiiT

404

" poor Lord Moira I his good qualities have been the ruin
«4ffi|ji3& 1 *Tf 4<4FJStfstaril. aATi: 'to noite-jilduq orto baonemmoD sd
" Que les vertus sent dangeretises

Dans sun bdraraesaws^t^tfjacwftflduG oi b'WOmsi

^ffl o* BC <>t>;f/:teJfcS« uitftter to ;Miss Godfrt® JjQVviMty tfbtoa m&

j <jvcH J c fooq oifMthMmRltalti^f^'.^ftA

"Whether the Bight Honourable Richard feyder considered
the suggestion that a spy should be placed on the move-
meni;s of a man whose only crime seemed to have been his
want of caution (a strange defect in a supposed confiden-
tial agent of Kapoleon), was a sample of those " gom
qualities" that " ruined " Lord Moira, or not, it is impos-
sible tpvsay ; but he certainly must have seen in the letter
of his lordship, which supplied not the slightest f^c^ that
could be acted on, a remarkable proof of his want of
"judgment."

I have been favoured with the following interesting
letter from Philip Lawless, Esq., Barister-at-law, the only
surviving son of Shelley's " literary friend " in DublinjJIIB

fi/bo iu/; fioijwj eill ^iioiteiioim snoin

"February i6th, 1870.

, " I have to apologize to you for not sooner acknowledging
yours of the nth inst., and thanking you for your kind ex-
pressions about my father. I would be happy to give you
any particulars bearing on the subject of your inquiries, but
unfortunately anything of the. kind in my possession are
not worth mentioning. I have a perfect recollection pf
my father describing the agreeable society which he enjoyed
with the poet P. B. Shelley, chiefly, I think, at the house
of our great countryman, John PhilporCurran. I think he
said it was about the time you mention, 1 8 12, or 1813. My
father unfortunately seldom ever kept papers or documents.
You are perhaps aware that he was prevented by Lord
Clare going to the bar, and this clouded and surrounded
with difficulties his after life. I ought to mention that-I
also recollect my father stating that Shelley lived or lodged
in the; same street as him self, Cuffe i Street, or in its im-
mediate neighbourhood. The first edition of The History

must

a copy of the second edition published in 1815. In 1819
he commenced the publication of The Irishman in Ee;|fa«$,
and continued it there for about eight years, when he
removed to Dublin, and resumed .the? publication of it. I
am stfrry I cannot give you some more assistance as to my
father's acquaintance with the poet. I have often thought
of putting together in a memoir shape whatever materials
I could collect, with the hope of doing some justice to my
father's memory, and of showing the important and pro-
minent part taken by him, but I have always been deterred
by the meagreness of the information in my hands. Again

begging you to excuse my delay in writing,

"T x & afcriJ fcOiiifwjp

tl-p'{ jytf <1Cn^V^t^e

hcrktj^ fa'ty^EJa » d* ion J

lo ihuiw' '' .'oiq old-ii^'i^nm & ^uo Luloo sd Llwoo
DESCRIPTION OF JOHN LAWLESS. ••ahu^"
" Jack Lawless had many distinguished qualifications as
& public speaker. His voice was deep, round, and mellow,
and was diversified by a great variety of rich and harmo-
nious intonations. His action was exceedingly graceful
and appropriate ; he had a good figure, which by a pur-
posed swell and dilation of the shoulders, and an elaborate
exactness, he turned to good account, and by dint of an
easy fluency, of good diction, a solemn visage, an aquiline
nose of no vulgar dimensions, eyes glaring underneath a
shaggy brow with a certain fierceness of emotion, a quiz-
zing-glass, which was gracefully dangled in any pause of
thought or suspension of utterance, and above all by a cer-
tain attitude of dignity which he assumed in the crisis of
eloquence, accompanied with a flinging back of his coat, which
rounded his periods beautifully, ' Honest Jack' soon became
one of the most popular and efficient speakers at the Catholic
Board." — Life and Times of Daniel O'Connell, with Sketches
of some of his Contemporaries, by C. M. O'Keefe. Dublin,

1864. vol ii. p. 23.

' —

* The History of Ireland was not published until 1814, as previously
stated. lo iioiJiby ooihooddgian

DifiATH6fl./-.
From The Morning Chronicle, Thursday, August roth, 1837.

"This gentleman, who for many years has occupied so
large a space in the public view, as connected with the
politics of Ireland, has terminated his earthly career. He
was taken ill on Saturday last, and died on Tuesday, aj^
twenty minutes past twelve, at his lodgings in Cecil Street.
Mr. Lawless was at all times a most energetic and uncom-
promising advocate of his principles, which were decidedly
of a liberal character."

The following account of the death of Mr. Lawless is
quoted in The Times of the same date, from a " 'Ministerial
paper." It i& erroneous in two particulars. Mr. Lawless
was never called to the bar, and did not receive, he pro-
bably would not have accepted, " a small appointment in
Ireland." The article in the "Ministerial paper "is as

«.,!

follows : —

" DEATH OF MR. LAWLESS.

"We regret to announce the death of this gentleman,
familiarly known in Ireland as 'Honest Jack Lawless.',
This event took place yesterday afternoon, at his lodgings
in Cecil Street, Strand. Mr. Lawless was early in life a law
student, but the Irish Lord Chancellor (Clare) prevented his
call on account of his political principles. Later in life,
however, he was called in times of less trouble and more
freedom. He was one of the leading agitators of the Irish
associations, and also connected with the Liberal press, both
in Dublin and Belfast. Mr. Lawless had in his declining
years, shortly since, obtained some small appointment in^
Ireland. His eloquence was sometimes declamatory, but
ever sincere, and in all the actions of his life John Lawless
deserved well of his countrymen."

The following passage is taken from an article on the
death of Mr. Lawless in The Morning Herald of the same
period. As Mr. Lawless had never been called to the bar,
the story of the prominent high "legal" appointment is
probably unfounded.

: j"lt is strongly rumoured that the 'sickening pangs of

hope deferred,' which Mr. Lawless was doomed to expe-
rience had a considerable effect in hastening his end. A
few days prior to his decease intelligence was commu-
nicated to Mr. Lawless by an illustrious individual that a
high legal appointment would shortly be conferred on
Mm, and by many his rather sudden decease is attributed

to the excess of joy caused by this announcement."

J J i *iiow.f

fllJ bilR ^UNERAL OF JoHK LAWLESS.

From The Morning Chronicle, Friday, August i8th, 1837.

" The mortal remains of ' Honest Jack ' were yesterday
deposited in the vault attached to the Catholic chapel in
Moorfields. Several friends of the deceased wished to offer
the Irish patriot the tribute of a public funeral ; but the
absence of almost all his political confreres from town in-
duced those more immediately interested to adopt a different
course. Our readers are aware that Mr. Lawless died on
Tuesday, the 8th inst., at his apartments in Cecil Street ;
but those who were invited to follow him to the grave
met at the residence of Henry "Williams, Esq., 14, Lin-
coln's Inn Fields, whence they proceeded to Cecil Street
in three mourning coaches. The hearse being in readiness,
the procession moved slowly along the Strand.

" The first coach contained Philip Lawless, the eldest
son of the deceased, Captain Lawless (his brother), Henry
Williams, Esq., and Dr. Best ; in the second were Sheridan
Knowles, Mr. J. O. Gumming Hill, Mr. Witham, and Mr.
Ireland ; while the third was occupied by Captain Eoberts,
E.N., Dr. Alley, Mr. Eoberts, and Mr. Shee. The funeral
rites were solemnized by the Hon. and Eev. Mr. Spencer,
brother of Earl Spencer, and the Eev. Mr. Hall. The
ceremony was highly affecting, every individual present
having for years been ' linked in bonds of closest amity '
with the departed.

" Strangulated hernia was the proximate cause of poor
Lawless's death, and the disease, though ultimately acute,
had been (if we may be pardoned the expression) consti-
tutionally chronic for some time. When Dr. Lawrence,
his medical attendant, suggested the absolute necessity of

4o8 APPENDIX.

submitting to an operation, the patient inquired * whether
it was an affair of life or death ?' Dr. Lawrence answered,
' That it might become so if prompt measures were not
adopted.' ' Then proceed, sir,' said Lawless ; ' delays are
dangerous, and I'm quite ready. I did hope that I might
have had time to write to my wife and the boys ; but go
on, sir — I am prepared.'

"After the operation had been performed, the sufferer ral-
lied for a short time, and said, 'That Lawrence is a wonderful
fellow ; I am a letter man by a thousand pounds.' His 'ruling
passion strong in death ' was powerfully developed. He
raised himself from his pillow, and with his wonted anima-
tion reprobated the conduct of the Middlesex electors
towards Hume, at the same time expressing his firm convic-
tion that * The Boys of Kilkenny' would do their duty.
A friend who sat by his bedside delicately hinted that
other subjects ought to engross his attention, and inquired
whether the reading of a prayer would be agreeable.
Lawless thanked the gentleman, and while in this com-
munion with his God he expired.

"No groan, no sigh to speak his soul's release."

It would be curious, considering the connexion which
existed between Shelley and John Lawless in 1813 and 1813,
if the Captain Roberts, E.JS"., who attended the funeral of
Lawless in 1837, was the same Captain Eoberts, E.N.,
who from the top of the lighthouse at Leghorn, on the
fatal 8th of July, 1822, watched with his eyeglass the
homeward track of Shelley's vessel until it disappeared in
the sudden storm which overwhelmed it.

THE END.

PR MacCarthy, Denis Florence
5432 Shelley's early life

cop. 2

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